


all this feels strange and untrue

by clayisforgirls



Series: open your eyes [1]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alcohol Abuse, Amnesia, F/M, Gay Panic, Google Will Not Solve Your Problems, Hand Jobs, Idiots in Love, M/M, Misunderstandings, Obliviousness, Past Consensual Infidelity, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-07-29 03:42:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 51,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7668763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clayisforgirls/pseuds/clayisforgirls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What year is it?” Dr. Martinez asks, and Patrick can hear the concern in her voice.</p><p>“2015,” he answers, but he’s not confident in his answer at all any more.</p><p>There’s a look shared between his parents and the doctor, and he knows that look. He’s seen that look more times than he wants to count. It’s the Patrick Kane Has Fucked Up Again look. This time with a side helping of concern.</p><p>But Jonny—Jonny looks like he’s in pain, and Patrick doesn’t understand <i>why</i>.</p><p>“Patrick,” Dr. Martinez says after a pause, “what’s the last thing you remember?”</p><p> </p><p>In which Patrick Kane wakes up in November 2017 and doesn't remember the last two and a half years of his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started this way back in April, and (perhaps stupidly) signed up to finish this for the 1988 fic challenge that svmadelyn ran. It didn't happen in that timeframe, but 40k later it's finally done. It's a slight AU from the end of the 2015-16 season, since Patrick still lives in Trump Tower in this, and there is definitely some schedule handwaving for the 2016-17 season. This has been a labor of love, and sometimes hatred, but mostly love. And finally, _finally_ , it's finished. I plan on posting a new chapter every couple of days or so.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who offered words of support and encouragement, but especially Sheena (thundersquall) for being the best kind of distraction, Emma (miss_psychotic) for all of the encouragement, and Jenny (linsky) for making this a lot better than it would be otherwise. <3
> 
> A few non-spoilery warnings I didn't think needed a tag: an on-ice injury happens, one mention of a (female) character having previously had an abortion, there is some slight misogyny at a couple of points, the summer of 2015 is (briefly) mentioned, and there is a ridiculous amount of obliviousness and pining. Although that last one is pretty much every 1988 fic ever written.

“Kaner!” someone yells, but he turns too late and he feels the hit rather than sees it, flying through the air as his skates leave the ice, and then there’s pain everywhere—

—“Patrick?” someone asks, and he tries to say _yes_ but the words won’t come out, “Can you hear me?” and there’s a hand against his chest—

—there are lights above him, too bright and he moans, because it _hurts_ —

—when he blinks his eyes open, scratchy and dry, it’s _bright_. It’s too bright, and he squints against the harsh lighting until he can focus on something. There isn’t much to look at: the strip lights above his head, the square ceiling tiles, the top of the doorframe. The walls are pale yellow but they’re washed out with the sunlight streaming through the window, the blinds pulled open.

It looks like a hospital room; Patrick doesn’t remember why he’s here but there’s a dull ache in the back of his neck and across his shoulders. There’s a machine next to him, beeping every time his heart beats, a clip on his finger that he knows is for measuring his blood oxygen. He feels bruised, sore in the worst way, like he hasn’t stretched out enough after a game. It hurts when he turns his head, sucking in a sharp breath as the pain hits him in a way he hadn’t expected.

It’s then that he notices the figure curled into the chairs in the corner of the room. It’s Jonny, slack jawed and sleeping, his body pressed against the chair backs, his knees pulled up tight to his chest. It looks uncomfortable, all six foot whatever of Jonny crammed into two tiny hospital chairs, and unless Jonny’s here out of guilt because he’s the one who caused this, there’s no reason for him to be sleeping in Patrick’s room.

He doesn’t want to wake Jonny, and he’s suddenly _tired_ , and he lets himself be lulled back to sleep.

The next time he wakes, there’s no Jonny; his mom is sitting at his bedside, flicking through a magazine but not reading a page of it. He opens his mouth but his throat is dry and scratchy, and instead of saying _mom_ he ends up coughing, his neck hurting with every movement. There’s a flurry of motion, too much for Patrick to track, but as his mom presses kisses to his face his dad’s entering the room with someone in a white coat, a huge smile on his face.

His mom’s got his hand gripped tight in hers and he curls his fingers around hers just as tightly. She’s crying a little now, her cheeks damp with tears, soft sniffles pressed into the sleeve of her blouse as the doctor steps closer.

“Hi Patrick,” she says, picking up the chart from the end of the bed and glancing it over, “I’m Dr. Martinez. I’m going to look over a few things and then we can get you some water, okay?”

He doesn’t even try talking, just nods his head slowly, sending a new wave of pain down his neck. He bites his lip, sucking in another breath, and when the pain’s started to dissipate he sees her watching him intently, noting something onto the chart. She does a lot of that as she checks the various machines he’s hooked up to, and gives him a small smile when she appears to be done.

“I’m going to get a nurse to bring you some water and something for the pain, okay, Patrick? I’ll be back a little later.”

This time he curls his hand into a thumbs up sign instead of a nod, and she laughs before she leaves the room.

It doesn’t take long for the nurse to appear with the water and the pain meds; she helps him sit up, using the up and down arrows to raise and lower the top half of the bed, and he takes tiny sips of water while she hooks him up to whatever wonder drug he’s being given, her soft voice filling the room as she makes conversation with his parents.

“It shouldn’t take long for this to kick in. There’s a button by the side of your bed if you need anything else. Your chart didn’t indicate that you were allergic to anything, but if you start feeling weird then make sure you call for someone right away.”

“Thanks,” he rasps, and she gives him a warm smile. She’s pretty, with long dark hair and green eyes, and if he wasn’t with Amanda—or maybe if his parents weren’t here—then he’d try and get her to stick around, maybe give her his number. As it is, he just lets her leave, watching her perfect ass walk out of his life forever.

“How are you feeling, Buzz?” his dad says once they’re alone, and he pauses for a second before he answers.

“My neck hurts,” he says eventually, because it’s true. He doesn’t mention his shoulders, or the fuzz that’s in his head, because he doesn’t want them to worry more than they have to.

“We came as soon as we could, baby,” his mom says, still a little tearful as she presses a kiss to his cheek. “We’re glad you’re awake.”

“Me too,” he mumbles, even though he’s still not quite sure why he’s here. He can feel the painkillers running through his body already, relaxing his tight muscles and soothing his aches. “’m glad you’re here too.”

He’s not sure he even reaches the end of the sentence before his eyes close, the floaty feeling from the painkillers dragging him back into the world of slumber.

The third time he wakes, his parents _and_ Jonny are there. His parents are in the chairs, once again pushed back against the walls, and Jonny’s stalking by the door, trying to glare something into submission. It doesn’t take long for Jonny to notice that he’s awake, and he’s by Patrick’s side in three steps, brushing his hand over Patrick’s, his face a jumbled mess of concern and relief.

Which— _weird_.

“I’ll get Dr. Martinez,” his mom offers, and she slips out of the room while Jonny just stares at him like he’s an exhibit in a museum. If he wasn’t so used to Jonny’s weirdness, he’d be creeped out by the intense gaze. It just makes him mildly confused, though, and as he’s about to ask Jonny to stop being so fucking weird, Dr. Martinez saves him from a conversation he didn’t want to have.

“I’m so glad to see you’re awake again, Patrick,” she says. “How’s your neck feeling?”

“Better,” he admits after he tests moving his head a little. “There’s a little pain still, but not much.”

“That’s good to hear,” she says, smiling at him as she moves closer. She checks over the machines again, fiddling with the dial on the pain medication, and Patrick hopes it’s not going any lower. He likes the floaty feeling it gives him, even if it does make him want to sleep a lot. “Do you know why you’re here?”

He thinks back over the last few days; they’d won the Cup again, 2-0 against Tampa, and he’d drunk a _lot_ , and then there’s just a huge fucking hole after that. Patrick’s pretty sure that it wasn’t caused by the excessive alcohol consumption, although that may have had a part to it.

“No,” he admits, “I don’t—what happened to me?”

It’s the first time he’s really thought about why he’s here and he doesn’t fucking remember a thing; he tries to push away the rolls of panic that are washing through him but it doesn’t altogether work. His parents look concerned, but it’s Jonny’s face that really gets him, because the only other time he’s seen Jonny look like this is right after he drove his car into the support beam.

“We’ll get to that, okay?” the doctor says. He nods, only feeling a slight twinge in his neck, and manages a small smile. “We’re going to ask you some questions, just to test your memory. It’s just standard procedure.”

“Okay,” he says quietly, because a memory test indicates some kind of head trauma, and he doesn’t fucking remember.

“And you’re okay with your guests being here?”

“They can stay,” he says quietly. He really doesn’t want to be alone right now.

She starts with the basics; his name is Patrick Timothy Kane the second (which Jonny laughs at, and then mutters something under his breath); his birthday is November 19th, 1988; he was born in Buffalo, New York; he plays for the Chicago Blackhawks; he wears number 88; the president of the United States is Barack Obama.

He watches everyone’s expression shift at that, but he _knows_ Obama is the president. Unless he’s been in hospital for eighteen months then there’s no way he’s wrong.

“What year is it?” Dr. Martinez asks, and Patrick can hear the concern in her voice.

“2015,” he answers, but he’s not confident in his answer at all any more.

There’s a look shared between his parents and the doctor, and he knows that look. He’s seen that look more times than he wants to count. It’s the Patrick Kane Has Fucked Up Again look. This time with a side helping of concern.

But Jonny—Jonny looks like he’s in pain, and Patrick doesn’t understand _why_.

“Patrick,” Dr. Martinez says after a pause, “what’s the last thing you remember?”

He tells her about winning the Cup against Tampa, about celebrating with the team, about drinking and partying all night and that he doesn’t remember anything else, that it feels like there’s something missing.

“I don’t know why I’m here, I don’t know what happened to me,” he says, and he can feel the tears prickling at his eyes now, and he’s not going to cry, he’s _not_ , except when he wipes at his cheek there’s dampness under his hand.

“You took a bad hit,” Jonny says eventually, his monotone giving away nothing. “On the ice, you wouldn’t—you were unresponsive. They had to take you off in a stretcher.”

Something flits over Jonny’s face that Patrick can’t place, but it’s soon replaced by blankness again, his eyes hard as he focuses on a point above Patrick’s head. He sounds like he’s talking to the media after a bad game, his defenses up, giving nothing away to anyone who asks. He’s never been like that with Patrick, though; he’s always let his guard down just enough for Patrick to see the pain lurking underneath the hard exterior, and Patrick’s done the same.

But maybe they’re not the same people as they were the last time they won the Cup, and Patrick wonders what could have come between them to make him no better than the reporters who always want too much from Jonny.

“I don’t remember,” he says, because there’s nothing there, just a blank space where his memories should be, and he wonders how much of his life he’s missing.

Dr. Martinez asks him a few more questions before she explains they’re going to be running some more tests on him to try and see if there’s a reason for the amnesia. He laughs, because he’d thought this was the kind of thing that only happens on daytime soap operas, and when he voices his thoughts Jonny’s the only person who doesn’t manage a smile.

Jonny makes his exit before he’s taken for his first test, claiming he has skate, but Patrick can see the lie a mile away. Jonny won’t meet his eyes as he says his goodbyes, just bumps his fist against Patrick’s before he’s pulled into hugs by both of Patrick’s parents. He sees Jonny’s mask slip as Donna hugs him for longer than is necessary; he looks tired and stressed, his mouth pulled into a thin line, but by the time she releases him he’s schooled his face back into the blank slate Patrick’s seen too much of already.

Patrick doesn’t like it one bit, and as his mom tells him how worried they were and how they’re so glad he’s okay, he tries not to think about Jonny, and how him leaving had made his stomach curl.

\--

The tests take most of the rest of the day. There’s the standard concussion test, which he passes with flying colors, followed by him being hooked up to more machines than Patrick cares to count. The nurse from earlier—Kayleigh, he learns—is his guide around the hospital, and she mostly talks to fill the silences as they walk from test to test.

The only thing he wants to talk about is how much of his life he’s missing, but he doesn’t know how to ask.

After the final test—which involves playing with Legos, what the fuck—he’s taken back to his room. The only occupants of the room are his parents, and his mom kisses him on the cheek after he’s helped back into bed. His neck is starting to ache again, and Kayleigh hooks him up to the IV as soon as he’s settled. The effects are almost immediate, and Patrick feels himself relax into the pillows; he hadn’t realized just how much pain he’d been feeling until it had disappeared.

It doesn’t take long for Dr. Martinez to join them.

“So, Patrick,” she starts, and Patrick releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding, because she’s smiling and that can’t be bad news. “Everything looks good. You’re not concussed and none of the tests revealed that there was any damage to your brain.”

“So why is he suffering from memory loss?” his mom asks, and Patrick bites down on his lip.

“We don’t know,” Dr. Martinez says. “We’d like to keep him here a few more days, just to make sure that nothing changes. Since there’s no damage to the brain, we’re hopeful that Patrick will regain his memories with time. It’s not uncommon for this to happen after a trauma, although usually it’s not for such a long period of time before the trauma occurred.”

“How long?” he asks shakily. There’s a period where his parents both look at Dr. Martinez for reassurance, and she gives them a nod, probably indicating that it’s okay to tell him that he’s missing a couple of months of his life. Maybe more than a couple, since he’s playing hockey, and that means it’s at least September.

“Pat,” his mom starts, and he can see the tears welling behind her eyes. “It’s November 2017.”

“What the fuck,” spills out of his mouth before he can stop it, and then he apologizes out of habit, but Dr. Martinez just looks amused. “What—how—I—

He had expected a few months, not two and a half fucking years, and he feels his fists curling in on themselves as he tries to figure out how to breathe, his short, sharp breaths not giving him enough air. He feels dizzy, trying to blink the room into focus as the voices around him fade into the background.

 _Slow down, Patrick,_ is the only one he can make out, _just push everything else away, and take a deep breath. Slowly._

He does exactly what Jonny tells him to do. The hand on his arm is a reassuring weight as he slows his breathing down exactly how Jonny’s telling him, closing his eyes as he focuses on himself. His hands uncurl as he feels his breathing even out until the dizziness segues into a mild headache and his heart no longer feels like it’s going to pound out of his chest.

When he opens his eyes, it’s not Jonny who’s holding his arm, it’s Kayleigh. He looks around the room for the set of deep brown eyes he knows so well but Jonny’s not even _here_ , and he feels his breathing start to hitch again, the nauseating sense of panic returning.

“Are you okay, Pat?” his mom asks, and he nods even though he isn’t okay _at all_. Instead of answering with words he just focuses on his breathing again, and he recognizes it as the same way Jonny breathes when he does yoga, stretched out on the stupid mat he brings on the road with him. It’s _weird_ because he doesn’t remember Jonny ever showing him how to do it, but clearly he’s learned sometime in the last two and a half years.

He doesn’t say anything about it, because it’s not like he hasn’t watched Jonny doing yoga in his underwear a million times, Patrick sprawled over his bed as he’d worked on game plays, showing a gross and sweaty Jonny when he was done with his stretching. It suddenly hits him that they might not do that anymore, might not be in each other’s space so often they might as well still be rooming together, and it hurts more than he thought it would.

“So who’s the president now?” he jokes, and he sees identical relieved smiles on his parents’ faces.

Dr. Martinez pokes and prods him a few times before letting him know that she’ll be back tomorrow, and she leaves with Kayleigh on her heels, leaving him alone with his parents again. He doesn’t know what to say to them, doesn’t know what his life is like in, _fuck, November 2017_ and his gaze drifts to his hands, to the hospital band on his left wrist. He tugs on it just for something to do, picking at the plastic with his bitten thumbnail.

It’s not long before visiting hours are over, and they both kiss him on the cheek before they leave. His mom gives him a long glance before she closes the door to his room, and then Patrick’s alone.

\--

His parents are already there by the time he wakes up the following morning. The medication’s making him sleepier than usual but he’d slept fitfully, his body unused to sleeping in a cramped hospital bed. He could have sworn he’d woken up at one point and seen Jonny curled on the visitor chairs again, but he isn’t sure he can trust his brain at the moment and he writes it off as his brain doing _something_ like trying to put his memories back together again.

Dr. Martinez doesn’t take long to arrive after he’s woken up, and he’s truthful when she asks about the pain—a little better—and as truthful as he wants to be when she asks about his memory. He’s still not sure about what he remembered yesterday, but there’s been nothing else since that’s made him think it’s anything but 2015, and he doesn’t mention it.

There’s a gaping silence once she leaves, and Patrick hates that he feels his awkward with his parents.

“So Dr. Martinez said that it’s okay to talk to me about stuff that I don’t remember,” he offers after a couple of minutes, and he sees the relief on his mom’s face. “I don’t—it’s weird, not knowing.”

It feels good to admit it, and soon his mom’s talking about how all of her siblings have a million new grandchildren to spoil while she has precisely none, and it hits him suddenly, the memory of driving Jackie to an abortion clinic in Chicago because it had been a one night stand and she’d been terrified, and how she’d made him pinkie-swear that he wouldn’t tell a soul. It doesn’t seem to gel in his brain, somehow fragmented from his pre-2015 memories, and he closes his eyes for a second, trying to get his breathing under control before he starts to panic again.

“If you’re tired, we can always come back later,” his mom offers when he meets her eyes again, and he’s about to tell them no when he yawns involuntarily. He hadn’t realised how good a nap sounded until she mentioned it.

They close the blinds on their way out but it doesn’t block out all of the light, the sunlight filtering softly across the room, and he tosses and turns so much he doesn’t even know if he gets any sleep at all.

It feels like he’s finally getting somewhere when there’s a knock at the door, and he moans into his pillow because he just wants to _rest_ ; he’s about to tell whoever it is to fuck off, but a concerned pair of brown eyes peek around the door, and he can’t say no to Jonny. He waves him into the room without a word and twists and turns on the bed until he’s semi-upright.

“I thought you might like this,” Jonny says in way of a greeting, and Patrick can’t bite back a smile as Jonny holds out his phone to him.

“First star for Tazer,” he says, grin evident in his voice and it makes Jonny’s mouth curl at the corners. “Fuck man, this has been so fucking _weird_. Maybe now I can find out what I’ve been missing.”

Jonny face falls a little at that, but it’s quickly schooled back into that blank expression Patrick’s beginning to hate. They’ve never been like this, not even while they were rookies and feeling each other out, and it makes Patrick sting a little to know that it wasn’t just concern that Jonny was trying to hide. Jonny’s never held back his emotions with Patrick, and it’s part of why he knows that Jonny will support him through anything.

“Your mom hasn’t filled you in?” Jonny asks and Patrick shakes his head.

“Only with family shit. So nothing important,” he jokes, and Jonny laughs a little. Hopefully he’ll know what Patrick’s aiming for with this conversation. Mostly he wants to know if they won another Cup.

“You’ve changed, Patrick,” Jonny jokes back, and Patrick feels something shivery in his spine; Jonny _never_ calls him Patrick, and he can’t work out if the feeling is good or bad or just different. Weird, definitely, but his whole life is weird now, and he gestures for Jonny to tell him what he’s missed on the ice.

Jonny does; he goes straight for the jugular and tells him they haven’t won another Cup. Patrick’s more pissed at being bounced in the first round against the fucking Blues in 2016 than he is about losing in the WCF to the Ducks the following year, but they both sting maybe more than they should. They’d known when they signed their contracts that it would be hard with them taking up so much space in the cap, but Patrick had maybe naively believed that they could do it regardless. From what Jonny’s telling him, it hasn’t been as easy as he’d thought.

There’s little things that Patrick picks up on: Jonny talks about Seabs and Duncs and Hoss but there’s no mention of Sharpy or Saader, and Patrick hates knowing that him and Jonny have caused their friends to be shipped to other teams, that they won’t be wearing the Indian head on their chest when Patrick returns to the ice. He tells Patrick about the prank war with Shawzy and their ridiculous room service bills, and Patrick remembers the ending with startling clarity.

“We shared my bed that night,” he interrupts as Jonny’s telling him about the broken toilet in his room, and Jonny just stops, open mouthed and wide eyed and _dumb_. It’s not a good look for his captain. “I- I think I remembered a couple of things. Just dumb stuff, but…”

He trails off, not really sure how to end that sentence, but he’s sure the smile on Jonny’s face matches his own.

“What else did you remember?” Jonny asks hesitantly, and Patrick bites at his lower lip. He’d promised Jackie, but this is _Jonny_ , and he’s certain that Jonny isn’t going to spill.

“I took Jackie to an abortion clinic,” and Jonny nods slowly. Patrick can’t work out if he’s nodding because he knew already or because he wants to be supportive, and he carries on anyway. “And, you got me to do some breathing exercises? That yoga shit you like?”

“It’s good for you!” Jonny protests, but the look on his face is soft and a little happy, and it’s all Patrick needs to know that he isn’t going insane. “And, uh, you enjoy it too now.”

“Fuck off,” Patrick says, but deep down he knows that Jonny isn’t lying. When he’d calmed himself down his breathing had been familiar in the same way that doing drills is, the muscle memory honed from repetition. Patrick wonders exactly how long he’s been doing yoga with Jonny, but he doesn’t ask. He’s sure he’ll find out in time, just like everything else he’s been missing.

“Told you you’d changed,” Jonny says quietly, his tone fond but somehow unchirpable, and Patrick can’t bring himself to meet his eyes.

They talk for a while longer, Jonny doing most of it and he’s halfway through telling Patrick about David coaching a peewee team in Winnipeg now when he stops abruptly.

“Shit, I have skate,” he says as way of an apology, and Patrick nods, understanding completely.

“It’s cool, man,” he replies, offering his fist and Jonny bumps it with his own, but his thumb brushes Patrick’s knuckles after, and he can’t shake the shivery-hot feeling that pools in his belly at Jonny touching him, Jonny’s eyes soft and focused on Patrick, and the room feels too small until Patrick blinks his gaze away. Jonny’s face twists into something close to a grimace but looks more like hurt, but Patrick doesn’t say anything before the moment passes and Jonny’s schooled his expression back into the black slate that Patrick’s seen too much of.

“Jonny,” Patrick says as opens the door, and Jonny turns to face him again. “Thanks. For, um, everything.”

He isn’t really sure what _everything_ is, but it feels important to say it to Jonny, and the resulting soft smile he gets from him makes him glad that he did.

“No problem, Peeks,” Jonny says. “I’ll be back later.”

Patrick isn’t really sure why he can’t stop smiling at that, but the curl plays at his lips long after Jonny leaves him alone, and he reaches for his phone, hoping it will give him a little more insight into his new life. His messages folder is absolutely terrifying, and instead he decides to Google the Blackhawks’ current roster.

It doesn’t take him long to read through the mixture of familiar and new names; he ignores the people he knows in favor of researching the people he doesn’t, but he’s hoping that his muscle memory is going to work the same way on the ice as it did with his breathing and he just going to _know_ how to play with them. He’s still on the second line, 72-15-88 now, and it’s early in the season still but their stats look good. Panarin looks about twelve, and Patrick can’t place him at all, not even on rival teams. At least he’s played against Anisimov before.

Most of the rest of the names he doesn’t know are rookies, or guys still on their ELCs, and he closes his browser because there isn’t going to be much, if any, information about them out there that’s going to help him adjust to the team. His messages folder is still bursting with unread messages but he skips them all until he reaches Sharpy’s conversation, pulling it up and sending a quick _im ok wish i could see my girls :(_.

The reply— _No love for me lil peekaboo :((((_ —comes quickly; it’s followed up by a picture of Maddy and Sadie holding a sign that reads _GET WELL SOON KANER_ , and Patrick’s not sure if there’s more glitter on the sign or on the girls. It makes his heart ache; they both look so much older than he remembers, and he’s still looking at the photo when a new message appears underneath it.

 _I’ll come to chi for a few days if you need me to_ and then _Or abby says you could come here?_

 _thanks sharpy_ he replies after a couple of minutes, because he can’t quite get his head around the guy who’s basically been his big brother for the last eight years not being here. _still in hosp tho :(_

 _Let me know if tazer is annoying you too much_ Sharpy texts back, and Patrick laughs for what seems like the first time since he woke up in this stupid room.

 _what else is new_ he replies, and he wastes some time texting back and forth with Sharpy until his parents return and his phone is abandoned once again.


	2. Chapter 2

Patrick’s parents get kicked out at eight when visiting hours are over, and apparently even being Patrick Kane won’t change Kayleigh’s mind. She laughs when he calls her a hard-ass, her smile wide as she tells him that it’s her job, and he once again contemplates getting her number. She’s easy to talk to but doesn’t put up with any of his shit and knows approximately nothing about hockey. All things which Patrick appreciates.

He’s figured out that at some point in the last two and a half years he split with Amanda. It’s almost like she never existed, no messages in his phone from her and no contact details, and even searching in his messages folder doesn’t bring up her name. His phone is fairly new—the oldest thing he can find on there is from this summer—so it would make sense that the split happened sometime before that.

It’s strange to think that he’s loved her for almost three years, and now she’s just _gone_. That he was celebrating with her when he’d won his third Cup, and it feels like yesterday but it’s not. At least not for everyone else.

There doesn’t seem to be anyone new either; the only girls that he texts on a regular basis are his sisters, and they’ve spent a large part of the last hour catching him up on their lives in their group text conversation. Mostly they’ve been texting him, interjecting with comments as one of the others tells a story, and he wishes they were here so he could see their faces. They’ve all promised to come and see him once he’s out of the hospital, once Dr. Martinez is sure that his visitors aren’t going to overwhelm him, and he understands it but it sucks.

Jess is bitching at him about Jackie’s latest boyfriend in a separate conversation when Jonny appears in his doorway, a timid wave as he pushes his way into the room.

“Hey,” he offers, and Patrick gives him a small smile in return.

“Kayleigh’s going to come and kick you out when she realizes you’re here,” he says.

“Nah,” Jonny says, looking more than a little smug. “She said it was fine. How are you feeling?”

“Better,” he admits. “’m still sore, but better.”

“Cool,” Jonny says aimlessly, and he produces something which looks suspiciously like Jonny’s Apple TV box. “Um, so I thought you might like to watch some hockey?”

It’s phrased as a question even though he’s sure Jonny already knows what he’s going to say; he feels his whole body light up, his smile wide and bright, and Jonny visibly relaxes. He’s climbing out of bed before he can give Jonny a real answer. His hospital gown covers less than any normal person would want to show, but Jonny’s seen it all before, and he grabs his IV stand as he pads across the room to where Jonny’s still hovering in the doorway.

He follows Jonny down the hallway and into the day room; it’s blissfully empty, and Jonny hooks up the device to the television while Patrick flops down onto the couch. It’s not the most comfortable thing he’s ever sat on, but it’s so much better than the bed in his room that he moans in delight as he stretches his legs out, spreading across the cushions as much as he can.

It means Jonny has to squeeze in by his feet. Patrick uses his toes to poke him in the thigh as Jonny picks the game, and they settle into a comfortable silence. It’s strange seeing Sharpy in victory green, still wearing the 10 but with different lineys, and he pushes down the lump in his throat.

“You okay?” Jonny asks, his hand resting on Patrick’s ankle, his fingers rough against his skin, and Patrick nods because there’s nothing else that he can do.

“I wish people would stop asking me that,” he admits, because it’s all he’s heard over the last few days, from his parents, from the doctors and nurses, from Jonny. He’s not okay, really, but it’s not like he can work harder at trying to fix his brain.

“I know the feeling,” Jonny says softly, and Patrick realizes that Jonny probably knows better than anyone what he’s going through. He remembers Jonny’s concussion; it had hurt that Jonny hadn’t told him about it, but when he’d gone to yell at Jonny for being an idiot he hadn’t been able to, the pain written on Jonny’s face more than enough to make his anger fade.

“Brains are the worst,” Patrick agrees. “It sucks.”

“Any idea when you’re getting out of here?”

“Dr. Martinez said a couple of days,” Patrick says. “But I think my parents are gonna stay for a while, you know? They said they haven’t been here for a while.”

“Not since before the summer,” Jonny confirms. “I’m glad, though. We’ve got a couple of away games, Toronto and Montreal, and—I’m glad they’re staying.”

_To keep an eye on you_ is heavily implied, if not said, and Jonny turns his attention back to the game, but his hand doesn’t leave Patrick’s ankle, his fingers brushing over the delicate skin there. It’s strange having _Jonny_ touch him in a way that’s usually reserved for a girlfriend, but Jonny’s never been big on personal space, especially when it comes to Patrick, and he wonders if this is just some of Jonny’s concern spilling over in the only language he knows how to process his emotions in.

“Circus trip?” he asks, and Jonny shakes his head.

“Still got a couple of weeks,” he says. “Hope you’ll be back on the ice by then.”

“Me too,” he murmurs, and Jonny gives him a reassuring smile, tightening his grip on Patrick’s ankle.

The goal horn drags him back to the game and he watches Sharpy celebrate with Segs and Benny, and _fuck_ that’s weird. He’s not sure he’s ever going to get used to it, and when he voices his thoughts to Jonny, the other man just chuckles softly.

“You’ve been saying that since he went to Dallas,” Jonny says when Patrick asks him what was so funny. “Guess some things don’t change, _Lil Peekaboo_.”

“Ugh, you know I hate that name,” he complains, and Jonny just throws one of the lumpy pillows at him. He tucks it behind his head, shifting until it’s vaguely comfortable, and less than a minute later he watches the Stars score again.

It doesn’t make it any less weird.

\--

He wakes to a woman repeatedly saying his name. The room’s dimly lit, a cool glow filling as much space as he can see, and he blinks until he can focus on the woman in front of him. It’s Kayleigh; she’s crouched in front of him in the small space between the couch and the coffee table, the glow from the television illuminating her delicate features.

“Did I fall asleep?” he asks blearily, and she nods.

“You both did,” she replies, and she tilts her head to indicate Jonny at the other end of the couch. He looks uncomfortable; his body is slumped into a position that has to be hell on his neck, his head resting on the back of his couch, and Patrick can hear his weird loud breathing filling the room. His feet are in Jonny’s lap, tucked close to Jonny’s body, his thumb pressing into the arch of Patrick’s foot.

“Oh,” is the only thing he can think of to say, his brain slow to put words together, and he pulls his feet out of Jonny’s lap and plants them on the floor. Slowly he uprights himself, rubbing at the twinge he feels in his neck, and he rubs a hand over his face, trying—and failing—to hide his yawn.

It doesn’t take much to wake Jonny up, and after the third poke to his ribs he’s slurring, “’trick, wha—“ before he blinks himself awake, eyes wide as he takes in his surroundings. He’s seen Jonny like this more times than he can count, still half asleep and confused, and if there was coffee in the room he’d be handing it to him right now.

Instead he just says, “We fell asleep, Taze,” and he watches as it sinks in.

“’m gonna go,” Jonny mumbles, dragging himself off the couch too fast and tripping over his own feet, blearily reaching for the wall to steady himself. Patrick swallows a laugh and pushes himself off the couch. They walk in silence down the hall, Kayleigh following them, until they reach Patrick’s room.

“You comin’ tomorrow?” Patrick asks, accent thicker and laced with sleep, and Jonny shakes his head.

“Flight’s at noon,” Jonny says. “Peeks, you—get better, eh?”

“Fucking Canadians,” Patrick manages, and Jonny’s smile is the most unguarded he’s seen it since he woke up in the hospital. “Win for me, _eh_?”

“Now who’s fucking Canadian?” Jonny asks, clearly amused, but before Patrick can think about answering he’s pulled into a hug, warm and tight, Jonny’s hands on his back. He buries his face in Jonny’s neck, and it’s comforting that Jonny smells the same: fabric softener and the cologne he likes, and the hint of _Jonny_ that lies underneath it all. Patrick isn’t sure he wants to let go, and from the way Jonny’s holding him he’s not sure that Jonny does either. He can feel the tears prickling at his eyes second before he sniffles.

“Peeks,” Jonny says, pulling back to look at him, and he opens his mouth to say something but closes it without a word.

“I know, Taze,” he says softly, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand. “Be better.”

It gets a laugh from Jonny, and they disentangle themselves from each other, Jonny giving him a look that Patrick can’t read before he heads down the silent hallway. Patrick doesn’t move until Jonny walks through the double doors that take him out of the ward, and then Kayleigh’s at his side, guiding him to bed.

“You got lucky with that one,” she says as she puts the clip back on his finger, fiddling with the machines at his bedside. “He’s a good guy, Patrick.”

“Yeah,” he replies, suddenly sleepy again, and he feels his eyes closing against his will. “He is.”

\--

It seems like Jonny spends most of his free time the following day texting Patrick; there are gaps, which Patrick attributes to morning skate before the flight to Toronto, but the rest of the day is a barrage of texts and stupid photos of his teammates and complaints about the food not being hippie enough for Jonny’s delicate taste buds. He should have expected it, since Jonathan Toews can never do anything by halves, and it’s reassuring to know that hasn’t changed.

Dr. Martinez doesn’t visit him until the afternoon, her smile wide as she walks into the room. Patrick nods at her in greeting as he pauses his game of Candy Crush, tossing his phone onto the bed as she walks closer towards him. He’d sent his parents to get him some real food, not the shit they keep feeding him here, and he’s oddly grateful for the timing.

“Feeling any better today, Patrick?” she opens with, and he’s truthful when he says yes.

“My neck’s feeling a lot better,” he says, “and there are—I’m starting to remember, a little.”

“That’s great,” she says, her smile getting wider as she makes some notes on the chart. “That’s a good sign there’s no permanent damage. We’re going to do a couple of scans tomorrow again, and then if everything looks good you’re free to go home.”

“Are you fucking serious?” he says before he can stop himself, and she laughs before he can apologize.

“I’ve heard it all before,” she says as an explanation. “I’m sure you won’t be the first person to use colorful language when I’m around, probably not even today. I’ve sent all of your relevant notes over to the Blackhawks. I’ve recommended you stay off the ice another few days. I know you said your neck feels better but there’s still some bruising and swelling in your shoulder, and you don’t get the benefit of the IV at home either. You should be ready to go by next week.”

“That’s awesome,” he says, the happiness evident in his voice if the grin on his face wasn’t enough. “Seriously. Thank you _so_ much.”

“I’m just doing my job,” she says, but she’s still smiling as she continues. “Bring the Cup home, and then thank me.”

“You got it,” he replies, and after a couple of minutes with his machines she leaves him in peace, and he picks up his phone again.

The first thing he does is text Jonny; first _freeeeeeeeedommmmmmmmm_ and then _well 2moro got to run a cpl tests first_. It takes less than ten seconds for him to get a reply, which means that Jonny was sitting by his phone and waiting for Patrick. Fucking lame. Only one of them is stuck in a hospital right now, and it’s definitely not Jonny.

_that’s awesome peeks_ is the message, shortly followed by _mike says you’ll be on the ice monday again if all ok, no contact jersey tho_ and then _i’ll be over saturday_.

He sends back every single smiley face emoji that he can find, and goes back to his game of Candy Crush until Kayleigh comes to check on him.

“It feels like you’re always here,” he jokes, and he watches her blush a little, maybe duck her head in embarrassment.

“It’s flu season,” she explains, “so I’ve covered a couple of shifts. And I’m not going to lie, extra money at this time of year is always helpful. I’m sure you know how it is.”

He doesn’t, because he’s a multimillionaire that can afford to fly his family around the world on a private plane if he wanted. He doesn’t tell her that, though, and nods like he really does understand her plight, but she’s not looking at him so it’s a pointless gesture.

“What does your boyfriend do?” she continues, and he’s sure his eyes widen comically because _what the fuck_. His only visitors have been his parents and _Jonny_ , and if she thinks that Jonny’s his boyfriend she’s a) mistaken in so many ways, and b) more clueless about hockey than he thought. “It must be nice to be able to travel for work. I’ve only been out of Illinois a couple of times.”

“Wait, _boyfriend_?” he asks, choking a little on the hysterical laughter that’s threatening to come out. “I don’t—what?”

“Mr. To-es?” and fuck, she really does mean _Jonny_.

“Toews,” he corrects automatically, “and he’s not— _no_. What gave you that idea?”

“It’s on the admission chart,” she says. “I mean, I wasn’t here when you were admitted, but he’s on the list of non-family members who are allowed to see you.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” he’s quick to point out and then realizes that might not be the bigger problem here. “I’m not even gay. Or—and he pauses to think about how he wants to word it, eventually going with, “I’m straight.”

It doesn’t sound as convincing as he wants it to; his voice cracks a little on the word, but he knows it’s true. He’s never even thought about doing _anything_ with a guy, not ever, and he’s Catholic, and he might actually kill Jonny when he gets out of here because _what the fuck_. He doesn’t understand why Jonny would say something like that, because it’s not even a funny joke. It could ruin their careers.

“Most—” Kayleigh starts, but she thinks better of it, and shakes her head on the way out of the room. Patrick’s pretty sure he’s blown whatever slight chance he might have had with her but there aren’t many thoughts in his head except Jonny saying that he was his boyfriend, and no matter how many ways he tries to wrap his head around it he can’t.

He aggressively texts Jonny, a simple _wtf dude the nurses think were banging??????_ , and stews until his parents return with Portillo’s, his taste buds tingling from just the smell of the food.

Jonny’s _they wouldn’t let me see you otherwise_ doesn’t come for an hour; he ignores it until Jonny follows up with _u know they cant tell right? because they have that confidentiality thing,_ and he can’t even bring himself to be mad anymore. He’s seen Jonny, pale and worn thin, curled up on his couch as though it hurt him just to breathe, and maybe if he was Jonny he’d have done the same thing just to be sure that Patrick wasn’t being as much of an idiot as he had been.

_i get it_ he eventually replies, and he doesn’t hear from Jonny for the rest of the evening.

\--

The first thing he does when he gets home is lock himself in the bathroom.

He’d looked permanently tired under the fluorescent hospital lights; they’d aged him much more than two years should have, the dark circles under his eyes contrasting with his pale skin. It had been weird to see a reflection he wasn’t familiar with, one that belonged more in _Twilight_ than Chicago, and he wonders if he looks the same here.

He places his clothes carefully on the counter as he strips, inspecting his new-old body for the first time. There’s a hint of a summer tan that’s clinging to him, his almost white thighs a stark contrast to the rest of his body, and he wonders exactly how much time he spent in the sun this summer. He has more freckles than usual, too: they spill over his shoulders and down his chest, making him look even more tanned than he really is.

Even with the tan he looks tired and pale—although not quite _Twilight_ level pale—but the dark circles don’t seem as prominent here. There are a few lines around his eyes he doesn’t remember, a faint scar on his cheek that definitely wasn’t there before. His hair’s short now, the ends just long enough to start curling, his hairline worse than he remembers it but he’s never been too bothered about that as long as his body’s perfect from the neck down.

He looks the same but different, the story of his fucking life now, and he sighs as he unlocks the door. 

When he steps out into the living room he’s greeted with three squeals he knows all too well, and before he can even think about taking another step he’s being hugged by all three of his sisters at once. They’re careful of his still-sore shoulder, and he can feel tears prickling at the corners of his eyes. He doesn’t try to hide them, because they’re all Kanes here, and relaxes into their embraces. 

It turns out that Dr. Martinez was right to have been concerned about him getting overwhelmed by too many visitors; his sisters are talking animatedly between themselves, and Patrick becomes increasingly lost in the conversation. It’s harder than he thought it would be; he knows his sisters better than almost anyone in the world, but it’s almost as though they’re strangers now, and he blurts out an excuse before darting back to the bathroom, tears prickling at his eyes again for a less happy reason. 

He sits on the counter, thumbing at his phone purposelessly until he pulls up the conversation with Jonny and starts typing. 

\-- 

Patrick falls asleep during the Hawks game that evening and wakes up on the couch hours later, a crick in his neck and a blanket over him. He hisses as he moves; the painkillers from last night have obviously worn off and he stumbles as he drags himself off the couch, feet tangled in the blanket. He makes his way to the kitchen on autopilot, tripping over the end table and ignoring the clatter of something falling to the floor. 

The painkillers are thankfully sitting on the kitchen counter, and he grabs himself a bottle of water from the refrigerator, leaning against the door as he downs half of the bottle in one gulp before throwing the tablets into his mouth. 

He’s too awake to sleep now, and instead of even trying to attain the unattainable, he stares out of his window at the Chicago skyline. It hasn’t changed in the last two and a half years, the lights still hypnotizing as the sun peeks over the horizon, the first wisps of orange bright against the deep blue sky. If he were a morning person, he’d consider buying a place with a rooftop garden like Jonny’s so he could sit out with his morning coffee and watch the sunrise. 

As it is he turns away, makes himself a cup of coffee and shuffles back to the living room. He picks up the photo frame that clattered to the floor on his way to the kitchen, expecting it to be the photograph of him and his family when he won his first cup, but when he turns it over it’s a photo of him and Jonny hugging on the ice. 

They’re wearing white, so they’re not at the UC, and there’s a sea of blue in the background, but it’s too blurry to make out where. Maybe St. Louis, he thinks, and then it hits him, Jonny passing the puck and him putting it in the net, Jonny’s arms wrapped around him seconds later and his breath warm on his neck, Jonny telling him that he loves him over and over until they’re being jumped on by the whole team. 

It’s the first thing he’s noticed in his condo that’s different, but he knows it can’t be the only thing, and he’s quiet as he moves around the space. The hockey shrine hasn’t changed much, except there’s an added picture of him and Jonny holding the Cup after they won in 2015, but that doesn’t surprise him. There are more commemorative pucks than he remembers and he picks one out at random. It reads _#88 100th POINT 2015-2016_ in blue lettering, and he drops it in surprise. A hundred fucking points. He’d googled his teammates but he hadn’t googled himself, and a hundred points should pretty much guarantee him an Art Ross. Maybe a Hart too. 

There are others there; a handful of hat tricks that he doesn’t remember, one from a twenty six game point streak, another from a six point game. There’s one from the following season reading _#88 97th POINT 2016-2017,_ and he guesses that’s what he ended the season on since the number doesn’t make sense otherwise. Maybe two Art Ross trophies then, and he reaches for his phone but it’s not in his pocket. 

He finds it on his coffee table blinking at him. There are a handful of messages from Jonny—starting with his hourly check in report after the game and getting increasingly more urgent as Patrick hadn’t replied, and ending with _sorry your dad just text your asleep_ —and he doesn’t really know what to do with them. He just types out a quick _yeah_ and then _stop worrying about me and start worrying about your game, u need it_ , even though Jonny had scored twice in the first period and hadn’t seemed to have needed any help at all. 

It’s easy to pull up his Wikipedia page and he skims until he reaches the Awards and Achievements section. Two Art Ross trophies, back to back, _and_ the Hart in 2016 too, along with a Ted Lindsay. It fucking _sucks_ that he can’t remember it, but no matter how many times he tries to picture accepting the award he can’t pull anything out of his fragmented memory. 

There isn’t much else of interest on his page; hockey Wiki pages don’t get the same level of details that basketball or baseball or football pages do, and he’s about to close the page until he spots _Kane confirmed his split with long time girlfriend Amanda Grahovec in February 2017, and is reportedly single._

He’d already known it, with the way that she wasn’t in his life at all, but it still feels strange, the distance between Patrick of June 2015 and Patrick of November 2017 suddenly too much for him, and he throws his phone at the couch cushions in frustration. Maybe reading his own Wikipedia page hadn’t been a good idea, and he goes back to prodding at his apartment. 

There isn’t much else that’s different in the living space; there are a few more photographs that he doesn’t remember, and the light fixture above his dining table is new, but his condo looks remarkably similar to the last time Patrick remembers being here. The bedroom is the same too, except the picture on his dresser of him and Amanda has been replaced by one of him and his sisters, and there’s a new one of him and Jonny next to it. Jonny’s holding a fish and looking immensely proud while Patrick makes a face of disgust, but he can tell they’re both trying not to laugh. 

Wherever they are in the photo, it’s not familiar to Patrick at all. 


	3. Chapter 3

Jonny takes Patrick to dinner on Saturday night to celebrate getting cleared for skate—although only after he’s asked Patrick’s parents, because he’s always perfectly polite around them in a way that he never has been around Patrick—and they end up at a seafood restaurant a few blocks from his condo. The aquarium catches his attention while they wait to be seated, and Patrick watches the brightly colored fish before they’re guided to a mostly private table in the back.

The restaurant is all low lighting and dark wood, so like most of the places that Jonny enjoys eating at, but it feels more familiar than that. It’s almost like they’ve eaten here before, at the exact same table, and Jonny ducks his head when Patrick asks about it.

“We’ve been here a few times,” Jonny says. “And you always end up eating my salmon no matter what you order.”

Patrick laughs and opens the menu. The salmon _does_ look good, but if Jonny’s going to order it anyway then he might as well try something else.

He’s still trying to decide between the tuna and the shrimp when the waitress arrives, introducing herself as Brandy before she asks what they want to drink. Jonny orders a glass of wine, something pretentious and French no doubt, and he orders a Bud without even taking his eyes off the menu.

Jonny’s making his constipated face as she walks away, which generally means that he's trying not to be judgemental but is totally failing. He turns around to see if there’s anything interesting behind him that Jonny might be looking at, but there’s nothing out of the ordinary which means that Jonny’s face has everything to do with him ordering a beer.

“Just because I’m not ordering your pretentious French wine doesn’t mean that beer isn’t acceptable for normal people, _Jonathan_.”

“A whole fucking menu and you end up with Bud,” Jonny says after a long pause, clearly trying to school his face into something that’s slightly less judgemental but not getting anywhere close. Patrick’s about to chirp Jonny about it when Brandy reappears to take their food order; he ends up with the shrimp because Jonny prefers it to tuna, and he’d never admit it to Jonny’s face but it’s only fair for them to share. He could just order the salmon, but that would be like admitting Jonny’s right about something, and Patrick likes to do that as little as possible.

Their drinks arrive shortly afterwards and it doesn’t take Jonny long to take a sip of his wine, but when Patrick brings his beer to his lips the taste is foreign on his tongue. It’s _weird_ ; Bud doesn’t taste anywhere near as good as he remembers, and he doesn’t know why. Instead of saying anything he slides his drink towards Jonny and gets a relieved-looking smile in return, Jonny’s foot nudging his own under the table, and when Jonny leaves his ankle hooked around Patrick’s, Patrick doesn’t say a word.

Being with Jonny is different than being with his family: Jonny allows Patrick to take charge of the conversation, and they end up talking about hockey, Jonny commandeering all of the condiments to map out plays on the table. Patrick adds his own suggestions because losing two years of his memory hasn't made him hockey stupid, and just from watching the last two Hawks games he can see they need to improve their power play. It sucks, and that's being kind.

There’s no sense of relief when their food comes, not like there had been with his family, and Patrick doesn’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing as he stabs the first shrimp with his fork. He almost moans when he tastes it, because it’s probably one of the best things he’s ever put in his mouth, and he can see why they’ve been here more than once if the salmon is even better.

“Oh my god,” he says, his mouth still full of food, and Jonny grimaces. “This is _amazing_.”

Jonny doesn’t say a word, just takes one of the shrimps off Patrick’s plate and puts it into his mouth like they’re some kind of codependent, food-sharing couple, and grins shamelessly.

“I’m definitely stealing your salmon now,” Patrick mumbles under his breath, glaring at Jonny, and Jonny just _laughs_.

Jonny does offer him half of the salmon though, and Patrick takes it eagerly; annoyingly it _is_ better than the shrimp, but while the shrimp hadn’t seemed familiar, the salmon does, and then he realises they've sat here before, Jonny handing Patrick his own fork with a bite of the fish and giving him one of his dumb smiles as their fingers brush.

“You—Peeks?” Jonny asks, his face drawn tight and concerned, and Patrick realizes he's been staring into his food for longer than most people would consider normal. He shakes it off, because there are going to be a million moments like this until his memory comes back, and impales another shrimp with his fork.

“Just remembered something,” he says, and Jonny visibly relaxes as he offers a small smile.

They finish up their meal in near silence, Jonny telling Patrick how he’ll have to catch up with _Game of Thrones_ while they’re on the circus trip, and it hits Patrick how accommodating Jonny’s been with everything. He knows that Jonny never turns off his captain mode, but Patrick isn’t sure that’s the only reason he’s doing this. He’s basically _doted_ on Patrick, everything from sleeping in his room at the hospital to bringing him hockey when he was bored out of his mind, and it’s suddenly easy to see why Jonny being his boyfriend was so believable to Kayleigh.

Something settles in his stomach at the thought, heavy and warm, and he pushes the last of his shrimp over to Jonny. He’s not sure that he could eat another bite, something he’s sure of until Brandy reappears with the dessert menu, and then it’s more a question of _what_ he’s going to order. He ends up ordering the cheesecake just to spite Jonny and his stupid plate of fruit, but Jonny won’t stop looking at it like with his stupid doe eyes and Patrick ends up pushing the last bite over to him.

“Awesome, right?” Patrick asks, but Jonny’s got his mouth full and all he can do is smile around the piece of cheesecake. He looks ridiculous and Patrick doesn’t miss a beat in telling him so and Jonny’s mature, adult response is to give him the finger.

Instead of Brandy, it’s a man who brings their check over to them. It’s someone Patrick doesn’t recognise but Jonny clearly does, and Patrick works out that he’s the owner of the restaurant by virtue of Jonny dropping it into their conversation. He seems like a good guy—one who’s comped their bill—and Jonny tries to protest in his annoyingly Canadian way but Mark insists, joking that they can pay him in publicity. It doesn’t take Patrick long to figure out that Mark means a photo with the two of them, and they’re shuffled into a more private corner for it to happen, out of the way of prying eyes.

Jonny’s in the middle because he’s the tallest out of the three of them, and Patrick tries to paste the best-looking smile he can muster on his face while Jonny’s hand curls around his hip like it belongs there, heat searing through his shirt at the contact. His hand trails across Patrick’s back when they’re done and Patrick sucks in a breath, his heart racing as Jonny says their goodbyes for them.

They walk back to Patrick’s the long way, Jonny guiding him across the river with a nudge of his shoulder, and the lights glittering in the water catch his eye. It’s beautiful at night, and it’s not yet cold enough for Patrick to think twice about stopping on the bridge, leaning against the railing. Jonny presses against him, shoulder to shoulder, and Patrick’s stomach does _something_ that feels a lot like nervous anticipation.

Of what he doesn’t know, because this is _Jonny_ , and Jonny knows him better than almost anyone else in the world.

“C’mon, loser, you’ve got a game tomorrow,” Patrick says when he the tips of his fingers start to feel numb. “Wouldn’t want your hands to fall off.”

Jonny just nods in response, and they walk back to Trump Tower silently, their fingers brushing together as they walk through the streets until they reach his door. Jonny pauses before he pulls Patrick into a hug, too close and long for their normal shared bro hugs and it’s _strange_ ; Jonny can be Captain Handsy when he’s drunk, and sometimes when he’s not, but the way he wraps Patrick into his arms doesn’t feel like either of those things.

“You coming to the game tomorrow?” Jonny asks, and Patrick shakes his head. They’d all agreed that it would be easier if Patrick stayed away from games until he was ready to be back on the ice. They didn’t want someone to ask him a question he didn’t know how to answer, and the _Blackhawks star suffering from amnesia_ narrative is something that Patrick doesn’t want to have to deal with more than necessary.

“You gonna score for me?” Patrick teases, but he watches the flush of Jonny’s cheeks deepen, the way he glances away from Patrick for a split second. Almost like he’s embarrassed.

“Depends what’s in it for me,” Jonny replies after a second, using the voice that Patrick’s seen work on a number of girls—and not work on many more—and Patrick can’t help but laugh.

“Maybe I’ll pay for dinner next time,” he offers, and this time it’s Jonny’s turn to laugh. It’s not Patrick’s fault that Jonny’s stupid Canadian manners get in the way even when he offers to pay for dinner. Which isn’t often. It’s not worth the argument.

“I’ll believe that when I see it, Peeks.”

Jonny’s smile is kind of dumb, but he’s lost the concern that was hovering on his face during their meal, so Patrick counts it as a win. They say their goodbyes, and there’s an edge of disappointment as Jonny disappears around the corner.

There’s an alert sitting on his phone before he climbs into bed; it’s a notification from Twitter, letting him know that Jonny’s tweeted something. He can’t hide his grin, because Jonny’s Twitter is probably going to be the most boring thing on the _planet_ , probably reminding people to eat organically and proving exactly how uncool he is, but he swipes to open the tweet anyway.

It’s just a retweet of their picture with the owner of the restaurant; Jonny’s got that slightly pained media smile painted on his face and Patrick’s isn’t too far from that, but no one who doesn’t really know them will be able to tell the difference. The text reads _Had some special guests tonight, thanks @JonathanToews and @88PKane!_ , and Jonny’s added his own _thx @AnglerChicago for a great meal.. shame about the company_ and Patrick laughs. It’s just _so_ Jonny, and he hits to reply without a second thought.

It’s easy to chirp Jonny back, but once he’s done he finds himself scrolling through Jonny’s Twitter feed. It’s exactly as boring as Patrick thought it would be—no surprises there—but in between Jonny’s tweets about nutrition and yoga and hockey there’s a photo that catches his eye.

It’s of a lake—at least, Patrick _thinks_ it’s a lake—and the sun’s starting to dip in the sky, the bright blue giving way to pinks and purples. Jonny’s taken the photo from the boat dock, the wooden structure taking up too much of the photo for Jonny to ever consider a career in photography, but there’s a person sitting on the edge of it, his feet dipping into the water. He’s in profile to the camera, a baseball cap pulled low over his face, and he’s too far away to truly make out any details, but Patrick knows it’s _him_.

 _Perfect end to the day :)_ the tweet reads, and it’s dated July 3rd, 2017.

It’s strange to know that he spent time with Jonny in the offseason. It’s not something they’ve ever talked about, because Patrick’s always wanted to see his family and spend time in Buffalo, and Jonny’s wanted to do the same in Winnipeg, and Patrick had never been sure that he wouldn’t kill Jonny after two days of being alone with him anyway. But apparently he’d managed not to kill Jonny, and just looking at the photo makes Patrick feel happy and relaxed in a way that he hasn’t been since he woke up in the hospital.

He doesn’t remember anything about the trip—doesn’t even know where they are—but he still manages to fall asleep with a smile on his face.

\--

Patrick’s sisters fly back to Buffalo on Sunday evening, and it’s bittersweet. They spend the morning abusing his credit card on Michigan Avenue, and normally he’d be half-heartedly complaining the whole time, but it’s the most normal he’s felt with them in the last four days. It’s easiest when Jackie and Erica are bickering over a pair of shoes and he’s left alone with Jess; they’ve never been as close as he is with the other two, but Jess had to carve her own path being in the middle, and they’re really more alike than they are different, driven and focused and more introverted than either of them would want to admit. She tells him about her new job—she’s a paralegal now, which doesn’t surprise Patrick, because she’s always been the smartest of the four of them—and about the cute guy that she’s working with.

She laughs when he tells her just to go for it, because he’s Patrick Kane and he’s never been cautious about _anything_ , and cryptically tells him that maybe he should follow his own advice. He wants to ask her _about what_ , but she’s darting off in the direction of Erica and Jackie before he gets a chance, and he forgets about it as the four of them eat lunch, Jackie and Jess using their fries as lightsabers like they used to when they were kids.

It’s not that he wants them to leave, but when his dad drives them to the airport there’s an edge of relief that he didn’t expect. He loves his sisters, but it _is_ overwhelming to feel like he knows nothing about them anymore.

His evening is spent watching the game with his parents from his couch, grinning when he sees the new play that was sketched out on the table of Angler. It doesn't quite gel the way that Patrick had imagined, but he thinks it will with him and Jonny together, making magic the only way they know how.

He texts Jonny throughout the game, a steady stream of insults until Jonny gets the assist on the game-winning goal in overtime, Panarin wrapped in his arms, and Patrick can’t help but feel that it should be him.

\--

It didn’t surprise Patrick when he woke to a text from Jonny telling him to be outside his condo at 10am and that he was being driven to practice.

It _does_ surprise Patrick when he curls up in Jonny’s passenger seat and fiddles with the radio just to get a rise out of him. Jonny’s taste in music has been terrible as long as Patrick’s known him, but he doesn’t even complain once when Patrick flicks between stations like it’s going out of style, and his only reaction when Patrick settles on Radio Disney is Jonny’s fingers tightening around the steering wheel.

Patrick wrinkles his nose, because he doesn’t want Jonny treating him like he’s breakable, or like he’s an acquaintance that he only sees once a year. He wants Jonny to treat him like _normal_ , even if that means being chirped for his taste in music—which is _baller_ , so fuck Jonny—and making dumb jokes at Patrick’s expense.

“I’m not a fucking invalid, Tazer,” he says as Jonny’s mouth twists into a grimace over a song that Patrick doesn’t recognize. “I know you hate this shit.”

It’s not quite outright baiting Jonny but it works; his lips curl in what passes for a smile and he reaches out to switch the station over to whatever country crap he was listening to before Patrick got in the car. It’s pretty terrible, and when Jonny changes lanes Patrick uses the split second to switch it back to Radio Disney. _Let It Go_ fills the car and he can’t resist tunelessly singing along, getting the words wrong on purpose.

Jonny mutters something under his breath about him being more annoying that a five year old, but it just makes Patrick giggle as he offhandedly comments that he would totally do Elsa if she wasn’t a fictional character. Jonny wrinkles his nose in disgust and their conversation dissolves into bickering over which Disney princess is the hottest, Jonny pushing for Belle because she speaks French and Patrick arguing back just for the sake of it.

They’re both grinning by the time Jonny pulls into his spot at the UC and they’re still arguing when they reach the locker room door, and Patrick stops mid-sentence as he realizes exactly what Jonny’s done. He’d been nervous that morning, stomach twisting into knots at the thought of being thrust into the middle of a group of people who he doesn’t know even though they know him. There’s a reason they handed Jonny the C when he was only twenty, and it’s moments like this that that he lives up to it.

“Thanks,” he says softly, and Jonny shrugs like he did nothing at all.

There’s a moment of silence between them, stretched and stilted, until Jonny says, “We haven’t got all day, Kaner,” and Patrick shoots Jonny an embarrassed smile because he’d been blocking the doorway without even realizing.

It’s easy to push the door open, but it’s Jonny who nudges him inside. As he’s met with the familiar beats of Drake, he feels himself relax a little.

They’re early, so the room’s half full at best, but eight pairs of eyes flick to him at the same time and his feels his stomach twist again because he only recognises Hoss and Hammer. The rest of the guys look young, probably rookies, and it’s not like he’d really looked at most of them beyond their stats, pulling up some of their most recent line combinations on YouTube to familiarise himself with the plays.

Hoss pulls him into a rough hug without saying a word in English; he mutters something in what Patrick assumes is Slovakian before Patrick’s released, and Hammer claps him on the back before he turns back to his stall. The rookies seem more nervous, glancing between him and Jonny with identical terrified looks on their faces. It takes Patrick a second to realises that they’re not scared of _him_ ; they’re scared of _Jonny_.

He’s known Jonny for ten years, and hell, he’s a little scared of Jonny right now. He’s almost certain they all received the ‘Do Not Ask Kaner About His Memory Loss Or Else’ speech yesterday, because clearly they have no idea what to say.

Patrick manages a stupid little wave, his fingers flexing as he does it, and one of them manages a dorky wave back. One down, five to go.

Seabs and Duncs thankfully interrupt the awkward tension by bursting into the locker room together. Patrick recognises the look on Seabs’s face; he’s clearly being subjected to one of Duncs’s latest monologues about whatever true-life murder book he’s been reading, and he sees the exact second when Seabs notices Patrick in the room.

“Kaner,” Seabs says brightly, the look of relief flooding his face obvious to anyone who’s spent more than ten seconds with Duncs. “How’s the head?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer before reaching out and ruffling Patrick’s hair, gently tugging him into a headlock as he does so. Patrick doesn’t even try and escape; he just takes the affection for as long as it’s offered, and then it’s Duncs’s turn. He’s more rough with Patrick, but it’s nothing out of the ordinary: he’s used to being manhandled. Sharpy had always said it was his birthright as the shortest on the team, and when Duncs releases him there’s a pang of nostalgia for Sharpy. It’s strange being in the locker room and knowing he isn’t going to walk in at any moment.

“We’re all glad you’re back, man,” Duncs says as he throws his bag into the corner. “You gotta keep this one in check.”

He gestures to Jonny, who’s glaring daggers at the two of them. It’s ridiculous, and a complete overreaction, but then again it’s _Jonny_ , and he’s never been known for being a normal guy. Always too intense and weird and focused, and apparently Patrick now falls into the category of things that Jonny is really fucking weird about.

Okay, so not that much of a change. But Jonny’s definitely more protective of him now than he ever has been before, except maybe the way he always has been on the ice. It’s oddly sweet, just like Jonny bringing him hockey while he was in the hospital had been, and there’s a rush of affection Patrick can’t quell.

“Good luck with that,” Seabs says, and gives Patrick a double thumbs up. It makes Patrick laugh, which he guesses was the point, and he sees Jonny roll his eyes out of the corner of his own. There’s the hint of a smile on his face, one that really doesn’t belong there when a couple of the rookies start chirping Jonny about his crazy intense face they’ve seen too much of recently, and Patrick wonders if the murder eyes were all for his benefit.

The thought is pushed away when Panarin spots him, and Patrick’s being hugged and prodded before he can even say a word. He’d paid more attention to his linemates than the rookies, and Panarin’s comically large blue eyes and curls are easily identifiable. Panarin seems to genuinely like Patrick despite the language barrier, and he sticks by his side even after the rest of the team have trailed in.

“Glad you back, Kaner,” Panarin says quietly when the room turns to other topics. “No fun playing with Tazer, he yell.”

“Jonny always yells,” Patrick says with a smile, loud enough for Jonny to hear. “Makes him feel important.”

“That explains so much about our fights rookie year, Kaner,” Jonny chirps over his shoulder, and Patrick can’t contain his grin. “And all the other years.”

It’s Patrick’s turn to roll his eyes now, and Panarin’s still giggling when Q appears. This, at least, is familiar, even if the names and some of the plays aren’t, and he watches the rest of the team shuffle out of the room until it’s just him and Jonny.

“Ready?” Jonny asks, and doesn’t wait for a reply before he waddles towards the rink.

“Ready,” Patrick says to the empty room, and follows him.

Q’s cautious with him at first but eventually he ends up running drills with Panarin and Anisimov. Skating with Panarin—no, _Breadman_ he mentally corrects—is easy. It feels like they were born to play together, the same way it had always felt with Jonny. They click right away, and Patrick’s not sure if he was expecting anything different; clearly some part of his brain still has all of his unlocked memories, and apparently this is no different than that weird breathing thing that he’d remembered back in the hospital. And he guesses in a way hockey’s exactly like breathing. At least it is to him.

Jonny’s watching him from across the rink with an approving look on his face—probably happy they aren’t going to have to switch up their lines—but the second he realizes that Patrick’s looking back he skates over to Q, launching into a conversation that’s making Q’s brow furrow.

It’d be amusing if it wasn’t so weird, but then Q’s yelling something about the power play, and Patrick doesn’t think about it for the rest of skate.

\--

The trainers pull his shoulder in a million different ways after practice, but apart from a little muscle soreness—and what else is new there—there’s no pain. He fist pumps when they tell him that he can play in the game tomorrow—because _fuck yes_ —but he’s still warned about concussions and the long term effects of hiding any symptoms. He tunes it out because it’s not like he doesn’t have it all memorized anyway. Fucking Jonny had seen to that.

Apparently think of the devil and he shall appear, because Jonny’s waiting for him in the hallway, thumbing through his phone like he has nothing better to do. Sure, Jonny had been his ride, but Patrick’s pretty sure he has enough money to call an Uber. Jonny’s eyes flick up to Patrick when he hears the door close behind him, and there’s a questioning look on his face.

“So?” Jonny asks, and it doesn’t take a mind reader to know what he’s asking.

“Your number one is back in action, baby,” Patrick leers, but it doesn’t get the reaction he was hoping for. Jonny’s expression is pinched and tight, but only for a second before it’s smoothed away.

“That’s great, Kaner,” Jonny says with a smile, but it’s more reminiscent of his media smile than anything else. Patrick hates it. “We’re meeting Duncs and Seabs for lunch.”

“I am capable of making my own decisions, _Jonathan_ ,” he says derisively, because fuck Jonny for just assuming that he wanted to eat lunch with him. “Maybe I had plans.”

“You didn’t,” Jonny says confidently, and then steers him in the direction of the parking garage. “I’m fucking starving, let’s go.”

“This better not be one of your vegan hippy places, Taze.”

“Duncs picked it,” Jonny says, and that makes Patrick feel a little bit better. It’s more likely to be a steak house than whatever new juice bar has sprung up downtown. Not that Patrick actually _minds_ the juice places, but he’s got to keep up his appearance of not caring about Jonny’s _my body is a temple except when presented with cheesecake or a gourmet burger_ lifestyle.

Except, “I’m only coming if we can get smoothies on the way home. From Peared Up.”

Jonny gives him a weird look before he says, “Sure, Kaner,” and then spends the rest of the walk to the car fiddling with his phone again. Jonny isn’t _that_ popular, and Patrick knows all of Jonny’s classic avoidance techniques. This is definitely one of them.

“We don’t have to, I’m sure Jamba Juice will be happy to take my money.”

“We’re not going to fucking Jamba Juice,” Jonny snaps, but his forehead creases in confusion, like he’s trying to figure something out. Patrick suppresses the urge to smooth it out with his thumb which—weird. “No, it’s—Peared Up only opened this summer.”

“Oh,” Patrick says, because it’s not like he _can_ say much else.

“Did you—” but Patrick cuts him off, because he knows what Jonny’s going to say.

“No,” he says abruptly, because he’d have told someone if he’d got his memories back. “It’s weird. Like, I told you about that breathing thing. I guess it’s like that.”

“And playing with Breadman,” Jonny points out, and Patrick can’t help but grin at that.

“Like I’d have forgotten how to play _hockey_ ,” he replies, and shoves at Jonny. They walk down the hallway like that, pushing and shoving at each other like they’re nineteen again until Jonny pulls him into a headlock, his fingers brushing against his hairline, and Patrick’s breath catches in his throat. He trips over his own feet, and they end up on the floor, Jonny sprawled on top Patrick.

“You okay?” Jonny asks and Patrick nods.

“I’m fine,” he says, pushing at Jonny. “Or I would be if you’d get off me, I can’t fucking breathe.”

“Such a lightweight,” Jonny says with a grin, but he untangles them before he stands, offering a hand out to Patrick. He looks at it warily, because this is _Jonny_ and he’d definitely be the kind of guy to fake lending a hand. “Just take it, Kaner.”

He does, and Jonny pulls him to his feet. Patrick rolls his eyes as Jonny gives him a once over because he clearly doesn’t trust Patrick’s opinion of _his own body_ , but he’s satisfied soon enough and slings an arm around Patrick’s shoulders as he nudges him in the direction of the parking lot. Jonny’s arm is warm and heavy, and Patrick leans into his side without a second thought.

He feels the split second of hesitation from Jonny before he pulls Patrick tight against him, curling his fingers into the soft material of Patrick’s hoodie, and they walk to the car without another word passing between them.

\--

Patrick’s buzzing with excitement throughout the game. He takes a second to glance at the 2015 banner as he skates out onto the ice. There’s nothing forthcoming, nothing to say that he saw it being raised but it’s _there_ and then Jonny showers him in ice and his head’s back in the game.

He gets a goal in the first and two assists in the third. The second is a fucking _sweet_ pass to Jonny, and he’s being crushed against the boards almost before he hears the goal horn, Jonny yelling _fucking perfect baby_ right in his ear.

They end up winning 4-2, and he gets a first star out of the night and it feels pretty fucking perfect.

He stays away from the media after the win because he still doesn’t want to get stuck on a question he should know the answer to, but he can’t help but overhear Jonny talking about how great it is to have him back on the ice and how his goal was all due to Patrick in his typical Jonny way. Usually Patrick would be chirping Jonny about his clearly superior hockey skills, but he looks so damn happy that Patrick can’t bring himself to do it.

The team’s mood matches Jonny’s: everyone’s laughing and joking, and Patrick lets it fade into background noise as he strips out of his Under Armour and heads into the showers.

“You coming out?” one of the rookies asks when he gets out, and Patrick shakes his head without thinking about it. He’s happy, but he’s _tired,_ and mostly right now he wants to crawl into his bed and sleep for the next ten hours. He hasn’t slept a full night since he’s been home from the hospital and he’s hoping that the exhaustion will help him do just that.

“Not feeling it,” he explains when the rookie—Beans, he remembers Jonny calling him, though he can’t work out _why_ —asks him. “Plus my mom and dad are in town.”

“Never stopped you before, Kaner,” Seabs says. “I still can’t believe your dad walked in on you fucking that blonde.”

“That was _one time_ ,” he protests, even though it had been twice because apparently it takes that many times for Patrick Kane to learn not to take girls home with him when his parents are in town. And he’d been young and dumb then. Although not that much has changed. “Fucking Sharpy, man. I told him that in confidence.”

“And you picked _Sharpy_ ,” Jonny says incredulously, trying and failing to hide a smirk.

“Because Seabs has never spilled any of your secrets,” he retorts. He’s not sure what reaction he was looking for, but Jonny turning his head away wasn’t it.

“Not the important ones,” he hears Jonny mutter under his breath, and then Beans is asking him all about the ‘incident,’ and by the time he turns back to Jonny, he’s disappeared.

He’s not even close to being the last one out of the locker room but he knows his parents are driving him home tonight since Jonny is still being weird as fuck about him driving, and they’re already waiting for him by the time he’s ready to leave.

“You played good tonight, Buzz,” his dad says as Patrick greets them both with a hug. There must be something that looks like pain written on his face, because his dad goes on, “Your shoulder okay?”

“‘m just tired,” Patrick says, even though he could use some ice and maybe a massage. He can get at least one of those things at home. “And hungry,” he realizes a second later. “Can we grab something on the way home?”

“Sure, honey,” his mom says. “The diner near your place okay?”

What Patrick really wants is the chicken parm from the Italian place near Jonny’s, but there’s no way it’s going to be open this late. 

“Yeah, that’s fine,” he says, and his mom smiles.

The rest of the week is much of the same. Jonny picks him up for skate, they bicker over the radio station, they have lunch with their teammates and then either they head back to the gym or Jonny drops him home. His mom cooks all of his favorite comfort foods from when he was a kid, even the ones that aren’t close to being on his diet plan, and other than the game on Thursday night they stay in, enjoying the quiet evenings at home.

They leave the day before he’s due to fly out on the circus trip, and even though he insists that he’s fine to drive they end up catching a cab to the airport. His mom hugs him for longer than might be necessary, but he can’t say he blames her; it feels like it’s been too long since he saw either of his parents before this, and he doesn’t know why neither of them have come to Chicago in so long. His dad especially, because he loves coming to games.

Patrick knows that he could ask his parents more about his life now, but they’ve already done so much for him. He feels awkward asking his parents why they haven’t visited him recently, and he isn’t sure they’d know the answer anyway.

It’s just another mystery in his life now that he might never get the answer to, and Patrick’s slowly coming to terms with the fact that his situation isn’t going to change any time soon.

He just has to hope and pray that his memories keep coming back to him.


	4. Chapter 4

The sound of Patrick’s phone ringing wakes him up.

He doesn't bother to check who’s calling; there’s only one person who has the dubious honor of having ‘Baby Got Back’ as their ringtone, and he swipes to answer the call. If Jonny’s calling him this early, it _must_ be serious, because Jonny’s never out of bed until the last possible second. And he hasn’t even hit snooze on his alarm once yet.

“Kaner, where the hell are you?” is the greeting he gets before he can even say one word.

“Jonny, what—” he starts, but he’s cut off.

“I’ve been sitting out here for ten minutes,” Jonny snaps. Patrick takes the phone away from his ear and has to blink a few times before he can focus on the numbers on his phone screen, but when he reads that it’s 10:08 AM, he groans.

“My alarm didn’t go off, _fuck_ ,” he says, rolling out of bed and stumbling over his own feet as he makes his way to the bathroom. “I’ll see you in five, yeah?”

The snort he gets from Jonny tells Patrick everything that he needs to know about how much Jonny believes he’ll be downstairs in five minutes. He pisses and brushes his teeth on autopilot, figuring that he can shower at the rink after skate, and he grabs the first set of clothing he finds in his closet. He’s relieved he packed for the trip last night because he doesn’t need to be thinking about trying to find matching jackets and pants when he’s still sleep stupid.

It’s easy enough to grab his things and head downstairs, and eleven minutes later he’s sliding into Jonny’s passenger seat with what he hopes is a guilty look on his face. Even though it wasn’t really his fault at all.

“We’re going to be late,” Jonny says curtly, and he’s pulling away from the curb before Patrick’s even fastened his seatbelt. The blaring horns around them tell Patrick everything he needs to know about Jonny’s driving skills in that moment, because he’s pretty sure they just pulled out in front of another vehicle. And he isn’t sure he trusts the Tesla to keep them safe.

“We’re going to be later if you keep trying to kill us,” he says snidely, and then grimaces. “Fuck, sorry, I just—”

“Your coffee’s probably cold by now,” Jonny says, gesturing to the two cups that are sitting in the console and shit, now Patrick actually does feel guilty. He takes it, trying to throw Jonny one of his most gracious smiles, but Jonny’s intensely staring at the road ahead. It almost looks as though he’s trying to set the car in front of them on fire with the power of his Tazer glare, and he has to work to hold back the laughter that threatens to escape with that thought.

“Thanks, Jonny,” he says quietly once he’s drained the coffee, and the upturn to Jonny’s mouth is enough to let him know that Jonny heard him.

It doesn’t take them long to get to the Johnny’s Ice House—Jonny drives like a crazy person on a normal day, let alone on a day where he’s frustrated as fuck—but Jonny’s still got his bitch face on as he climbs out of the car, Patrick following him as fast as he can.

Jonny’s grabbing both of their bags out of the trunk when he stops suddenly, his fingers curling tighter around the strap on the bag, his face contorting into that vaguely constipated expression he gets when he doesn’t really know what to say.

“Do I have something on my face?” Patrick asks. He doesn’t think he does; Jonny would be chirping him if he did, rather than looking like this, but he wipes his face with the sleeve of his hoodie anyway. It comes away clean.

“You need to change,” Jonny says eventually, loosening his grip on the bag so that Patrick can take it from him.

“Yeah, I’ve got my suit with me—” Patrick says, but Jonny interrupts him as he tugs the back door to his car open and he all but climbs inside, rummaging through the disaster that is his back seat.

“No, that’s— _shit_ , I know it’s in here,” comes Jonny’s muffled voice and then there’s a triumphant sound.

As he appears again there’s something being shoved into Patrick’s hands, something soft, something that smells like _Jonny,_ and there’s that now familiar curl of _something_ in his gut as he looks down at the hoodie.

It’s then that he notices the hoodie that he’s wearing. It’s one of Jonny’s old UND ones, the logo faded and cracked, but he can still read ‘North Dakota Sioux’ across his chest. It’s not the first time that Jonny’s laundry has ended up mixed in with his own, but it had stopped after they’d stopped rooming together, mostly, and he’s not really sure how he missed the stretch of fabric tight over his shoulders or the green and grey that couldn’t belong to anything else.

They already get called married and codependent. Patrick doesn’t want to add more fuel to that fire by wearing something that clearly isn't his.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, and switches hoodies as fast as he can, Jonny’s expression tight and pinched the whole time. It’s November, so it’s not even really hoodie weather and _fuck_ , they’re going to fucking Calgary and he doesn’t even have a coat, and—

“Kaner,” Jonny says in the tone that Patrick’s always known to mean _business_.

“Yeah, okay,” Patrick says once he’s thrown the UND hoodie into Jonny’s trunk, and gives Jonny his best smile. “This better not have your name on the back.”

“You’ve worn my jersey before,” Jonny says, sounding more than a little smug.

“Worst two minutes of my life,” he chirps back. Jonny just rolls his eyes as he tugs Patrick in the direction of the locker room. Patrick’s pretty sure the hoodie situation has erased any time Jonny made up with his crazy-person driving.

Jonny’s smiling a little though, his mouth slanting upwards in the way it does when he’s secretly amused but doesn’t want to show it to anyone. Patrick learned to read that expression in their second year as roommates and he’s seen it more often than Jonny would ever admit.

They walk in silence through the hallways, and the baseline of today’s music choice is the only thing that fills the quiet corridors as they get closer to the locker room.

“Just gotta get something,” Jonny says once they’re outside the door, and before Patrick can say anything he’s darting in the other direction, leaving Patrick standing alone. He shakes his head, because there are some things he’ll _never_ understand about Jonny, and this definitely has the dubious honor of being one of the weirdest when he’d been so concerned with time keeping this morning.

Q’s not there yet, thank _god_ , and it’s easy to slip into the conversation as though he isn’t on the cusp of being late as fuck. He keeps his head down and changes as fast as he can, letting himself get absorbed into the music that’s echoing around the room until the door swings open.

“Nice of you to join us, Tazer,” Beans yells as Jonny strides into the room. “Doing something fun this morning?”

The leer in his voice is unmistakable, and it gets a laugh from some of the other rookies. Patrick misses Shawzy at that moment, misses his chirping and the way he could always fill a silence and even though there were times when Patrick just wanted him to _stop talking_ , he’d trade a lot to have Shawzy back in this room with him. Maybe not Jonny, or the rest of the core, but a lot.

He knows it’s a part of hockey; it’s business in the end even though he wishes it wasn’t sometimes, and then Jonny says, “Your mom,” as he throws his bag down next to Patrick’s, and he can’t keep the grin from tugging at his mouth. At least some things won’t ever change.

“Fucking weak, man,” the reply comes, “pretty sure I told you to work on those.”

“Good luck with that one, kid,” Seabs says. “It’s a lost cause.”

Kaner doesn’t manage to hold back his snort of laughter at that, and Jonny elbows him in the ribs.

“Fuck you all,” Jonny mutters under his breath, and starts shedding his clothes without a second thought.

\--

Patrick’s craving calories by the time they get off the ice; it wasn’t a long or hard practice but there’s a reason that pro athletes need to eat so much, and he feels like his stomach’s about to digest itself. He’s fairly certain he’ll have a protein bar somewhere in his bag, or as a worst-case scenario one of the other guys will have one, but as he shuffles towards his stall he does a double take.

There’s a bag sitting in his stall, one that can’t be mistaken for anything except McDonald’s, the bright yellow and red logo standing out against the white of the bag.

He can _smell_ it as he steps closer, the aroma of grease and overcooked meat permeating even the sweat of the locker room, and he opens the top of the bag carefully with his fingers before he peeks inside. Sharpy might not be here now, but it’s still a locker room, and he isn’t stupid.

He’s half expecting some kind of powdered spray to the face, one that washes off his skin easily but clings to his hair—he would never claim that hockey players are anything more than teenage boys with their pranks—but instead he finds three Egg McMuffins, a handful of hash browns, and a cup of OJ. Not even close to being on his diet plan, but _exactly_ what he needs right now.

He takes a bite of the first Egg McMuffin and lets out a moan. Forbidden food always tastes the best.

Duncs comes up behind him, peering over his shoulder and into the bag, and Patrick slaps his hand away as he starts to reach inside.

“This is mine, fucker,” he says around a mouthful of Egg McMuffin, “get your own.”

“You got a girl you’re not telling us about, Kaner?” Seabs says. “And if so, can she bring one for everyone next time?”

“Maybe we can stop on the way to the airport,” one of the rookies chimes in, and Patrick catches the end of Jonny giving him a patented Tazer stare. Schmaltz has the decency to at least look scared by it and turns away, but Patrick can’t miss the half grin afterwards, the one that’s a little smug because Jonny can still scare rookies into behaving.

“No one is getting McDonald’s,” Jonny growls. “You should all be taking care of your bodies, you’re professional athletes, not in fucking college.”

The room dissolves into chirping Jonny for his love of organic everything; he takes it with good grace, more than he would have even two years ago, but Patrick stops himself from joining in because his gut is telling him that Jonny was the one to buy him this. He doesn’t think Jonny actually went to McDonald’s—he isn’t sure that Jonny’s ridiculous body would actually survive going into a building filled with so much grease—but his disappearing act this morning hadn’t gone unnoticed. At least by Patrick.

Probably an intern, Patrick realizes, or one of the girls in the office that find Jonny charming for any number of inexplicable reasons. The ones that haven’t realised he’s an asshole of the highest order and not the nice Canadian boy he pretends to be, although Jonny doing shit like this doesn’t help Patrick’s case one bit.

The third Egg McMuffin gets tossed in Duncs’s direction, because even Patrick has limits on grease after skate, and it’s easy to crowd into Jonny’s space as he heads to the showers, interrupting his conversation with Seabs to press a smacking, wet kiss to Jonny’s cheek.

“You gonna be my girlfriend now, Taze?” he says, brushing his hand over Jonny’s ass in a move that’s more accidental than anything else and then slapping it for good measure. “You gonna buy me pretty things?”

“I can do better than you, Kaner,” Jonny says, his monotone flat and lifeless like he’s filming their latest dumb video.

“You know you love me.” He shoots Jonny his most ridiculous smile. It gets what passes for Jonny’s media smile in return, Jonny looking thin and worn all of a sudden, and Patrick feels his stomach flip flop. He thought they were past Jonny acting like a weirdo.

Seabs has obviously noticed, too, if the look that he’s giving the two of them is anything to go by, which means that Duncs will probably know by the end of the day. But on the plus side, they might actually be able to fix whatever the fuck is weirding Jonny out so much because whatever it is, it isn’t going away.

“Whatever you need to tell yourself,” Jonny replies, his voice still giving nothing away. “And don’t take an hour in there. We need to be on the bus.”

He gestures to the showers, which, _gross_. He might have taken long showers when they were roommates because it had only been polite to jerk off in there alone, but at Johnny’s Ice House? No fucking way.

He does take long enough in the shower that Jonny’s smiling again when he returns, and Patrick would have forgotten about his weird mood swing if it weren’t for the fact that Jonny’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes.

\--

They start the circus trip with an easy win in Edmonton, a beautiful 4-0 game where it feels like everything’s clicking. He gets a third star for his efforts and Jonny’s hand on his neck after the game, his eyes bright when he says, “Good game, Kaner,” in his dumb monotone.

“Yeah,” he says stupidly, and then Jonny’s grinning at him, his fingers stroking over the bump of Patrick’s spine. It feels _good_ and it would be so easy to pull Jonny into a hug, press his face into Jonny’s neck even though Jonny smells kind of gross right now, and—

Patrick takes a step back, out of Jonny’s reach and heads into the showers so he’s far away from Jonny. Because he has no idea what that just was, and why he wanted to hug Jonny so badly, and why it feels like his whole body’s on fire when Jonny touches him.

Jonny’s manhandling the rookies when Patrick emerges from the shower, and he very carefully doesn't meet Jonny’s eyes as he showers and dresses, heading for the bus as soon as he’s done. There are only a couple of others on the bus already—Darls is there, and TVR, and the quietest rookie he still can’t remember the name of—and instead of choosing a spare double seat like he normally would he shoves the rookie against the window and takes the aisle seat.

He stretches his legs out, closing his eyes and resting his head against the back of the seat, but it’s impossible even to get close to sleep with someone staring at him. He opens an eye to find it’s the rookie with a guilty-slash-scared look on his face which is really fucking weird. He tries closing his eyes again but he can _feel_ it, which totally _is_ a thing, and he turns to the rookie with a sigh.

“Yeah?” he asks, because he’s not up for any elaborate conversation right now, and thankfully the rookie takes that as an invitation to speak.

“Just- you normally sit with Tazer,” the rookie says, and _oh_. The kid is scared that Jonny’s going to kill him with his Tazer glare.

“Needed a change of scenery,” Patrick says. “Don’t worry, he can’t really kill you with his eyes.”

“Kaner’s proof of that,” Duncs says, grinning wolfishly at Kaner as he throws himself onto the seat behind them. “Otherwise Jon would have killed him at least forty-one times their first season.”

“Especially that night in Toronto,” Seabs says, sliding in after Duncs like the mind-reading, codependent weirdos they are. “All I heard for weeks was your name and some French that didn’t sound complimentary.”

“I hate you both,” Patrick says, shutting his eyes and sliding further down in his seat until his knees are touching the one in front. He doesn’t want to rehash that story for the hundredth time, and that’s not even close to the worst fight they had that first year. “But kid, Tazer’s not gonna kill you.”

“Okay,” the rookie says, but he doesn’t sound convinced, and Patrick lets his mind wander as the bus starts to fill up, his headphones drowning out the noise of his teammates.

He’s almost willed himself to sleep when he feels Jonny stop inches away from him. He doesn’t know whether Jonny’s stopped for him or the rookie or something else entirely, but when he blinks his eyes open, Jonny’s sliding into the seat next to Crow and is pointedly staring away from Patrick, out of a window that’s only reflecting the dim lighting of the bus.

\--

After another blowout win in Calgary, Q mandates the next day as a rest day and Patrick’s never been more thankful to have a day that doesn’t feature hockey. The week he spent not training has taken more out of him than it really should have this early in the season, and despite the fact that he’s playing well there’s something nagging at the back of his mind that just feels off, but it’s not anything that he can place.

The hotel they stay at when they’re in Vancouver might be Patrick’s favorite; the mattresses are soft and the pillows like clouds, and the duvet is the perfect balance of warm but not stifling. It’s _perfect_ , and Patrick doesn’t really want to face moving from his cocoon any time soon.

Sadly, the knock on the door ruins any chance of that happening. It takes him a sleepy second to realise that it’s coming from the connecting door, which means that a) it’s Jonny, because no one else is that presumptuous, and b) the knocking isn’t going to stop, because Jonny is a persistent motherfucker.

It takes him a full three minutes to move from the bed and shuffle over to the door, and in that time Jonny hasn’t stopped knocking for longer than ten seconds.

“You ready to cheat on your diet plan?” Jonny asks him, and Patrick can barely manage a reply as he scrubs his hand over his face. Jonny likes to pretend he’s a morning person when really Patrick sees the tell tale signs of insomnia striking again; the lines around his eyes deeper set than usual, the sallowness to his skin. Patrick spent too many hours with Jonny in hotel bathrooms not to notice, handing him water and Gatorade and whatever else he needed.

If he was ever asked Patrick would say it’s because he couldn’t sleep with the light in the bathroom shining brightly into their room, that Jonny always made too much noise, but really it had been concern that had dragged him in there the first time and it had never gone away.

He realises he’s seen a lot of Jonny like this recently, pale and tired and withdrawn, and hopes that it’s not his weird food allergies again. Jonny barely eats anything as it is.

It doesn’t stop Jonny from walking past him and into Patrick’s room though, and he eventually settles on the edge of Patrick’s bed, like he’d known that Patrick wanted to climb back in and curl underneath the covers for a while longer.

“It’s early,” he eventually says, but Jonny still shows no signs of moving from his spot, and Patrick playfully pushes at his shoulder. “Jonny,” he whines. “I had _plans_.”

Jonny looks at him derisively, which _fuck him_. Patrick’s plans were baller, and if they mostly involved the World’s Greatest Bed, NHL Vault and possibly his right hand, then he’s okay with those choices.

“Yeah, okay,” Jonny says, clearly not believing Patrick at all. “But you really like this macaron place. So hurry the fuck up.”

“Macarons?” Patrick asks hopefully. They’re his all time favorite diet plan cheat, which Jonny finds hilarious because they’re French and he likes to claim them under Things That Are Awesome About Canada because they speak French there. Patrick thinks it’s a stupid argument. “You better not be lying, Toews.”

“Yeah, I’m dragging you out of bed at ten-thirty on our day off because I want to go to the gym,” Jonny says, except his face twists into a frown because that sounds like exactly the kind of thing he would do. It makes Patrick laugh because Jonny looks so confused that his joke didn’t work out the way he wanted, and he slips into the bathroom while Jonny’s still trying to figure out what went wrong.

It doesn’t take long for him to shower and change, and they grab breakfast at one of the vegan, hippie, health-conscious places that Jonny seemingly manages to find in every city. They’re abundant in Vancouver, and he’s known Jonny’s always liked the city, and—

He stops that train of thought before it can even begin, because even thinking about the possibility of Jonny playing somewhere else is horrifying. They’d both hated the idea of playing without the other, and it’s entirely why they’d signed their identical contracts even though his dad had wanted him to hold out for more money.

It didn’t help Stamkos, though, he realizes, and maybe he wouldn’t have gotten the twelve million a year if he’d gone elsewhere. At least Chicago is familiar, more of a home than Buffalo has been recently if the fleeting memories are any indication, and he knows his place on the team here. Even if he can’t remember some of it. There’s a feeling that recently he’s tried to silence the haters by carving his name into the history books; they’ll never even come close to what he can do with a stick and a puck.

It’s unsettling to know that isn’t how he felt after winning the third cup; he’d felt invincible then, his name etched into metal for the third time and the ink on his contract long dry. He’d felt like Chicago was finally _home_ , that he’d put down roots and that no one would ever be able to upheave them. And maybe—maybe it’s not like that _now_ , but there’s pieces of memories he can’t put together, where he’d shown the world he could play because he had to.

“You’re quiet,” Jonny comments as he kicks Patrick’s ankle, and Patrick looks up from his half-eaten food to find Jonny looking at him questioningly.

“Just thinking,” Patrick says, and then elaborates because Jonny’s not going to let it go otherwise. “About, contracts. And stuff.”

“They’re not going to ask you to sign your NTC because you can’t remember two years of your life,” Jonny says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Which, okay, that does sound kind of dumb, even to Patrick. “And I think you’re ‘all outta haters’.”

The way Jonny says it, Patrick knows it’s a direct quote. Probably from him, because he embraces the fact that he says ridiculous things sometimes. He’s not ashamed by it, but it bothers him that he doesn’t remember when he said it. Or why Jonny, of all people, would remember something like that.

“Thought you might like to move to hippie paradise,” Patrick says instead, gesturing to the inside of the cafe that probably looks identical to the other raw smoothie bar they’d passed on the way. “Plus I’m pretty sure weed is legal here.”

He says the last part in a low voice, because he’s not fucking stupid, but Jonny’s still looking around to make sure that no one heard them.

“Uh, _no_ ,” Jonny says, and then chirps, “and no one else would put up with your dumb ass anyway. Gotta have someone around to keep you in check.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Patrick says, grinning at Jonny to show there aren’t any hard feelings. “I’m sure no one else could stand to be around a two-time Art Ross winner.”

“Damn right,” Jonny says, looking more than a little smug and a little pleased too, because Jonny’s always celebrated Patrick’s achievements like they’re his own, happy and proud that Patrick’s part of his team. “And fucking finish your breakfast already, we don’t have all day.”

“Actually,” Patrick starts, but he trails off when he sees Jonny’s glare leveled at him. There’s a moment where he considers being as slow as possible just to piss Jonny off some more, but there’s also the thought in the back of his mind that maybe he won’t get macarons if he doesn’t hurry up, and he takes a bite of his blueberry waffles, chewing obnoxiously so Jonny gets the full effect.

They end up taking a cab to the macaron place, and Patrick’s reminded of their other shared cab ride in Vancouver, except this is all backwards. Here they’re heading towards where the Olympic Village was, or at least somewhere close to it, and Patrick’s a little disappointed when they make the turning to Granville Island instead of heading towards the condos where they stayed.

Jonny pays, grumbling the whole time about Patrick not having any real money with him _again_. Patrick chirps back about Canadian money being like Monopoly money—his standard joke, and Jonny knows it—and gets little more than an eyeroll for his efforts. Whatever, he knows Jonny thinks he's hilarious.

Jonny manhandles him around the brewery building and towards the one with the Granville Island Market Place sign. It's a bright day in Vancouver, oddly sunny for November, but it's _cold_ , the wind biting in a way that reminds him of Chicago. He prefers it to the damp, grey days they usually see here, even though he has to stick his hands in his pockets to protect them from freezing.

It only takes a couple of minutes until they're inside, and Patrick has to admit it’s kind of impressive. There are counters of meat and cheese and vegetables and they move between crowds of people seamlessly, Jonny’s fingers wrapped around his wrist, his fingers pressed against the beat of Patrick’s heart. He wants to tell Jonny that he's not five, he doesn't need a chaperone, but the words stick in his throat. Jonny’s thumb is pressed against the tiny scar the surgery had left, and Patrick just tries to ignore the warmth of Jonny, the sparks he feels in his stomach. There's something wrong with him, he _knows_ it, but it's not like he can go to the trainers and tell them that he keeps getting weird feelings around his captain. Ones he can't put a name to.

It doesn’t take long to find the macaron place between the maze of counters and Patrick’s immediately drawn to the display counter featuring more flavors than he’d even thought possible. It’s a beautiful rainbow of delicious, sugary goodness and he surveys the weird and wonderful flavors: _orange chocolate_ sits next to _creme brulee_ and in front of _candied pecan_ and he’s starting to think this might be the best thing Jonny’s ever given him.

“Can I help you?” someone asks, and Patrick flicks his gaze away from the potential sugar coma to see a kid standing behind the counter. His eyes widen and he clearly recognises Patrick, but thankfully doesn’t say a word about it. “I know it can be a little overwhelming.”

“Uh, yeah,” he says stupidly. “I just kind of expected six flavors, you know?”

The kid laughs a little at that and hands Patrick a leaflet. It’s a menu, and holy shit, this place has fifty flavors. He’s never going to be able to make a decision because they all sound like things he wants to put in his mouth immediately. There is no way that bacon macarons can’t be amazing.

“Take as long as you need, Mr. Kane,” the guy says, and Patrick throws him a grateful smile. “Let me know if you need any help.”

He turns to get Jonny’s advice, but he’s in deep conversation with someone at the other end of the counter; Patrick can’t understand what they’re saying, and it takes him a moment to realize they’re speaking French. He looks back to the menu—still really fucking overwhelming—but there’s a note at the bottom saying that they offer some dairy-free macarons too, and _huh_.

“Hey,” he says to the kid, who’s now staring at Jonny. He looks a little surprised and a _lot_ in awe, and it doesn’t fade when he looks back to Patrick. “I’ll get twelve of whatever you think is good. But one has to be bacon.”

The kid beams at him, and Patrick can’t help but smile back. He’s talking Patrick through his choices, but Patrick’s only half listening, the sound of Jonny’s laughter distracting him from his macarons. He likes Jonny like this: he’s somehow softer around the edges when he speaks French, a little more carefree and relaxed, like he can just be Jonny and not Captain Toews. Almost like when he does yoga, Patrick realises, and maybe that’s why he started doing it with Jonny, because he doesn’t think he’d ever get bored of Jonny just being _Jonny_.

“Anything else?” the kid asks once Patrick’s macarons are boxed, and Patrick pauses for a second before he orders two of the dairy-free ones, making sure there’s no cilantro in them. Patrick’s not even sure if cilantro macarons are a thing, but he’s learned it’s better to be safe than sorry when it comes to Jonny’s hatred of cilantro. Once he’d tried to add it into his guac and Jonny had been in the bathroom for an hour.

“You want a picture?” Patrick asks once he’s paid and Jonny’s macarons are safely hidden from view. The kid looks like all of his dreams have come true at once, and Patrick thinks that his smile might just break his face, but these are the kinds of fans that he loves. The ones who don’t make a big deal that they’re a Big Deal. “Just don’t mention we were buying macarons.”

Jonny’s hand rests over his the entire time they pose for the photo, the pads of his fingers rough against the back of Patrick’s hand, and Patrick’s pretty sure he forgets how to breathe until Jonny pulls away.

By the time they’ve walked around the rest of the market, Patrick’s eaten half of the macarons already and the only thing that’s stopping him going back for more is the look that Jonny gave him for buying twelve in the first place. They eat lunch at one of the restaurants looking out over the waterfront, and while Patrick asks for the check, Jonny arranges an Uber back to their hotel.

It’s while they’re waiting outside that Patrick hands over the pouch with Jonny’s macarons in it. The plastic wrapping crinkles under their fingers, and it looks like Jonny’s about to say something that’s either going to be about destroying the environment or that he can’t eat any of them.

“They’re fun free,” he says before Jonny can speak a word, and he knows Jonny will understand what he means. “Perfect for the stomach of one Jonathan Toews.”

“Well,” Jonny starts, but Patrick just rolls his eyes and shoves them at him before he can start on how much sugar is going to be in each ridiculously amazing bite. “Thanks, Peeks.”

The smile he gets from Jonny is real, his eyes crinkling in the best way, and Patrick stares at him for just a little too long before their Uber arrives.

\--

They go out with the team that night—Patrick thinks that team bonding night is pretty much written into the circus trip schedule at this point—but after the steakhouse Patrick’s feeling like he wants to be alone for a while. He loves his team, he _does_ , but there are very few people that understand that Patrick needs his space, likes to decompress by himself after forced company, and between his parents, sisters, and the team road trip he’s feeling frayed at the edges.

He’s not the only one who heads back to the hotel after the steakhouse—Seabs and Duncs and Hoss and Hammer are a given, but it shocks him when Jonny says that he’ll head back with them too. He’s all about team bonding, and despite the fact that he seems closed off, he really isn’t once you get to know him. Jonny likes people, especially _his_ people, and Patrick’s a little surprised he’s passing up getting to know the rookies a little better, finding out what makes them tick.

“Tired,” Jonny says with a shrug when he’s asked, and that’s something that Patrick can definitely believe.

For all that he needs alone time, alone time apparently involves Jonny because he finds himself sprawled across Jonny’s bed with the remote in his hand. Jonny’s stretching on the floor, his head down and his ass in the air, and other than the fact that there’s only one bed in the room this could be any night they’d spent as roommates. Except with less arguing. Five years ago Jonny would be bitching at the basketball game just to be an ass. Now he’s content with his own headspace, at least until he finishes his yoga routine.

Patrick’s only half watching the game; mostly he’s enjoying sinking into the perfect mattress again and wondering if Jonny would mind if they switched beds for the night because he doesn’t want to move. Maybe he could even get Jonny to turn the AC a little warmer because Jonny likes to sleep in the arctic, or at least as close as he can get his hotel room.

He’s considering wrapping himself in the duvet when the other side of the bed dips and the remote’s plucked out of his hand. Jonny stretches out next to him, his feet sticking into Patrick’s view of the television, but he shifts a little and then it’s perfect again.

At least, it’s perfect until Jonny switches the channel: first to golf—which is fine to play but watching is boring as shit—and then to something he has no idea about, but looks like one of the dumb pseudoscience documentaries that Jonny likes. And he might have put up with golf since Jonny lost the credit card roulette tonight, but he is not putting up with Jonny’s weirdness.

“I was watching that,” he says, tilting his head so he can level his best glare at Jonny. It doesn’t really work; he has to crane his neck awkwardly, and Jonny’s laughing at him a little, holding the remote far out of Patrick’s reach like he knows what’s coming.

“You were falling asleep,” Jonny replies. It’s not far off the truth, really, but Patrick’s not about to let Jonny know that. “But if you can tell me who was winning, I’ll change it back.”

It should be an easy question to answer and Jonny knows it, but Patrick really wasn’t paying attention to the point where he isn’t even sure which teams are playing.

“Lakers,” he says after a second. He knows he’s not correct when Jonny lets out a short, sharp laugh and holds up the remote in a terrible imitation of a celly, a stupidly smug smile playing at his lips.

“They’re not even playing, dumbass.”

“Then put golf back on, man, I can’t watch this shit.” Jonny’s lips part a little, as though he's going to form a reply but Patrick interrupts him. “And if you say the word optimization, I will hurt you.”

“Fuck off,” Jonny retorts, and Patrick rolls his eyes. “But, there’s this supplement—”

“I warned you,” Patrick says, and then he’s crawling across the bed towards Jonny, who clearly knows what’s coming. They did this too many times as roommates for him _not_ to know, and he tries to roll out of the way as Patrick dives for the remote. Jonny gets an elbow to his stomach as his reward and there’s a hiss of pain before Jonny’s trying to pull him into a headlock. It doesn’t quite work one handed, not when Jonny’s mostly still on his back, and instead Jonny resorts to kneeing him in the thigh.

“Motherfucker,” Patrick gasps, because that fucking _hurt_ , but he’s still got the upper hand even though Jonny’s still holding tightly onto the remote, just out of his reach. Jonny’s not ticklish, he learned that early on in their wrestling matches, but Patrick’s got sharp teeth and he bites Jonny’s shoulder through the sweaty t-shirt he’s wearing. It’s kind of gross, but it’s probably not the most disgusting thing he’s ever done, and it makes Jonny drop the remote. It hits the floor with a clunk and Patrick would roll off and grab it before Jonny pushes him away, but he’s having way too much fun with this, wrestling with Jonny like they’re teenagers again.

Jonny's better at this than he is, though, and Patrick suspects it's not entirely to do with the height and weight advantage: they're both competitive but Jonny gets some fucked up high from winning at the stupidest things and it's always included wrestling Patrick for the remote. Jonny has _skills_ , ways to throw Patrick off balance even though he has Jonny pinned to the bed. There's a split second where he sees Jonny planning his move before he's being flipped onto his back, all of Jonny’s weight pinning him to the mattress.

It's not really fair, because while Patrick’s top heavy, half of Jonny’s weight is probably in his ass and it makes him harder to flip. Instead Patrick squirms beneath him as Jonny runs a hand over Patrick’s very ticklish ribs, trying to tell Jonny to stop between giggles but he can't breathe, and then Jonny’s fingers are trailing over the bare skin on his stomach and he can't breathe for an entirely different reason.

“Jonny,” he gasps, bucking his hips up into Jonny to try and dislodge him. It doesn’t work, not even a little, but he does it again, rubbing his crotch against Jonny’s thigh, wrapping a leg around his waist to try and get a little bit of leverage because Jonny’s just kind of smiling at him, dumb and ridiculous, his face flushed, a sheen of sweat sitting on his skin. It’d be so easy to kiss him, to let Jonny press him into the mattress, to grind his hips against Jonny’s again, his dick almost hard already and—

And he stops, stilling underneath Jonny and looking up into those dark, dark eyes because _he’s fucking hard_. He can’t think anything more than _what the fuck_ over and over and he just needs to be somewhere else, somewhere he doesn’t want to kiss a guy, a guy who’s his _captain_.

“Get off,” Patrick says, and he watches Jonny’s face slide into confusion. “Jonny, fucking—get the _fuck off_.”

He does, rolling away from Patrick, and Patrick’s bolting for the connecting door before Jonny can say anything, slamming it behind him in a fit of frustration. They’ve wrestled for the remote a million fucking times, and he’s _never_ —before, and—

“Fuck,” he lets out as he pushes his sweats down over his hips, palming his dick through his boxers as he leaves a trail of clothing behind him on the way to the shower. The water’s barely warm when he climbs in but it doesn’t seem to matter; his dick still juts out straight and proud when he looks down, and he wraps a hand around it as he rests his head against the wall, the other palm flat on the cool tiles.

Usually it’s easy to bring up a pair of tits and a pretty face, but he can’t think of anything except Jonny heavy and warm above him, pressing him into the bed, using every inch and pound he has on Patrick to keep him there. Jonny kissing him as an extension of their wrestling matches, demanding Patrick’s attention the same way he does in every other way. Grinding their hips together until Patrick needs _more_ , the friction not enough to get him off. Jonny coming between them with Patrick’s name on his lips, biting at his lips until they’re red and raw and then it’s Patrick that’s spilling over his hand and the dark tiles of the shower.

Patrick washes the white streaks away with a swipe of his hand, and he wishes he could do the same to the stab of shame that’s settled in his gut.


	5. Chapter 5

Patrick wakes up with his morning wood pressed between his hip and the sheets, and he rolls over with a groan. The clock on the nightstand reads 7:23 AM; his alarm isn’t set to go off for another hour, but it’s light in the room, the sun streaming through the hastily closed curtains and—

And that explains a _lot_.

He closes his eyes again, but he’s not aiming for sleep; instead he palms his dick lazily. It’s easy to stroke himself to full hardness, thinking of nothing but the drag of his rough hand on his dick, the friction just on the wrong side of too much even as he smears pre-come across the head.

“Need some help?” a familiar monotone asks and Patrick’s eyes fly open, his heart racing as he looks around the room but there’s no one there. Hasn’t been anyone there, he tells himself, because his side of the connecting door is closed, has been since last night. And clearly it needs to stay closed.

“What the fuck,” he whispers, because that voice had been unmistakably _Jonny_. He tries closing his eyes again, clearing his mind of everything, but all he can think about is how he’d be able to feel Jonny’s smirk as they kissed, how Jonny would be just as intense about getting Patrick off as he is on the ice, and _fuck_ , his dick’s into that.

He glares at his traitorous dick because he is _not doing this_ and reaches for the remote on the other side of the bed. _Your Morning_ is equal parts annoying and inoffensive, and he wills his dick into submission while the hosts talk about the weather—it’s Vancouver, so Patrick’s almost certain it’s going to involve rain—and after twenty minutes of banal news reporting he finally feels as though he can face the day.

It’s still early when he heads down for breakfast and he’s not surprised to find Hoss there already. He raises an eyebrow at Patrick in surprise, but Patrick just fills a plate with all of the shit he isn’t meant to eat and sits across from him.

It’s quiet with just the two of them, their conversation mostly consisting of grunts and groans until the coffee sinks in. Duncs appears at some point during their non-conversation, but Patrick couldn’t say when; he looks up mid-bite and Duncs is just there, staring intently at his plate.

“We’re all too old for this,” Patrick bemoans. “Or it’s really fucking early. I can’t tell.”

Duncs holds his hands out like he’s trying to weight the two options up but he ends up shrugging, and Patrick manages to crack a smile.

“In ten years if you are still playing, we can talk about being old,” Hoss says. “But not until then.”

“If I’m still playing in ten years, I think I’ll be dead,” Patrick says, even though that doesn’t make a lot of sense. He’s always wanted a long career, but even now he can feel the extra postseason games taking a toll on his body, aching after games in ways he didn’t even two years ago. He isn’t sure where he sees himself at thirty-eight, but he doesn’t think it will be on the ice. Maybe in one of those nice new offices they’re building for the Hawks, looking at stats and scouting players while Jonny yells at everyone from behind the bench.

He shakes it off when he realizes that Jonny probably isn’t going to want to stay in Chicago for the rest of his life, and he chalks up the twisting in his gut to guilt over the three pancakes he just ate.

\--

It’s easy to avoid Jonny on the way to Rogers Arena; Patrick sits next to Breadman on the bus, even listening to some of his Russian music to avoid having to think about anything else. Their stalls are still next to each other, but Patrick changes fast and is out on the ice long before anyone else, skating laps until he feels Jonny watching him from the sidelines.

Jonny doesn’t get a chance to say anything because the rest of the team spill out onto the ice in dribs and drabs and Q has them running drills in their line combinations. Patrick sticks close to Breadman and Arty and persuades them both to stick around for a few minutes after practice, trying out his spin-o-rama as part of the drill they’d been running.

It doesn’t quite work, but away from Q’s beady eyes it feels like fun for the first time all morning.

He commandeers another rookie to sit next to on the bus under the pretense of finding out more about the guy. Nick seems nice enough, despite the fact that he went to UND, and he’s halfway through a story about some frat party when Patrick realises he’s heard this exact story before. He doesn’t say anything, just laughs in all of the right places until they’re back at the hotel.

There’s no way to avoid Jonny at lunch; it’s catered, a buffet set up in one of the conference rooms, and with every choice Patrick makes he feels Jonny judging him with the murder eyes. For what, he doesn’t know, but he wants it to be his food choices for the first time ever, and not the thing that happened last night. Jonny’s a decent human being but that doesn’t mean he wants to feel his teammate’s junk pressed against his leg.

If it had just been friction, Patrick could have passed it off as not getting laid in a while, but that excuse went out the window the moment he wanted to kiss Jonny. His face flames at the thought and he ducks his head as he takes the furthest seat possible from him. The conversation around Patrick flows over his head; he just focuses on his plate, figuring out the fastest way to eat his food and escape before Jonny can corner him.

It doesn’t work; Jonny’s clearly been watching him from across the room and as soon as Patrick stands up to leave, Jonny does the same, and Patrick’s breath catches in his throat. He doesn’t want to do this here. He doesn’t want to do this at all, but Jonny’s clearly on a mission and he just hopes Jonny has more sense than to have this conversation in front of their teammates. Prime chirping material right there.

Seabs is following him, a couple of steps behind Jonny, and he gives Kaner a nod. For what, he has absolutely no idea.

“Patrick, I—” Jonny starts, but he’s cut off by Seabs placing a hand on his shoulder, turning him away from Patrick just slightly.

“Me and Duncs, we just wanted to run over a couple of things with you before the game,” Seabs says, and Patrick manages to let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

“Uh, yeah, okay,” Jonny says, “the power play? Because I had some ideas about that.”

Seabs steers him back towards the tables, throwing Patrick a look over his shoulder that he reads both as _get out of here while you can_ and _you owe me_ , but Patrick doesn’t care. He’d have traded at least one of his cup rings to never have that conversation with Jonny, ever, and maybe even thrown in his first born child, too.

He texts Seabs a quick thank you before he undresses and slips under the covers, and doesn’t quite manage to get Jonny’s face out of his mind before he sinks into sleep.

\--

To say that he doesn’t play well against Vancouver is an understatement. It’s not just him, but they lose 4-1, their only goal coming off a Canuck skate. Jonny ended up with the credit for it, but after the game he’d yelled at anything and everything he could before sinking into his stall, his face murderous.

Patrick almost wishes they were heading to Vegas tonight; he’s had enough of Vancouver, enough of stupid twins and stupid Swedes and stupid _everything_ , and he just wants a fresh start somewhere else. Even the thought of the World’s Greatest Bed does nothing to shake off his funk, and no one’s in the mood to talk on the way back to the hotel. Patrick puts his headphones on, turns his music up loud and pretends the outside world doesn’t exist.

By the time he crawls into bed there’s a bruise forming on his ribs. He doesn’t remember getting hit but that doesn’t mean anything with the brutal, physical style of the west coast teams, and he considers waiting until tomorrow to ice it except he knows that it will hurt like a motherfucker if he does.

Except he’s apparently forgotten to pack any of the instant cold packs that he has a box of at home, and he doesn’t really want to bother the trainers this late. His options are reduced to the ice machine down the hallway and hoping he can find something to put the ice in, or Jonny.

It says something about his life when Jonny’s the _worse_ option, but he opens his side of the connecting door anyway. He’s ready to knock when he realises that Jonny’s side is already unlocked, and he cautiously pushes it open.

Patrick feels his mouth go a little dry at the sight of Jonny doing yoga in nothing except for his underwear. It’s nothing he hasn’t seen before, but it suddenly feels about ten times more pornographic. Jonny’s on his knees, his back arched with his head touching the floor, his hands gripping his calves as his chest rises and falls. But all Patrick can see is the outline of his dick in his boxer-briefs, and he’s overcome with the urge to get to his knees and press his lips to the soft flesh of Jonny’s thighs.

Instead he trips over his own feet and crashes into the nightstand, using the lamp as support as he regains his balance. Jonny’s looking at him quizzically, like he doesn’t even understand what Patrick’s doing here, and instead of words Patrick just pulls the side of his shirt up, showing Jonny the reason he’s in his room.

“I, uh, forgot mine,” he says, and Jonny rolls over onto his side and clambers ungracefully to his feet. Patrick tries hard not to look at the way his thigh muscles shift as he walks to his bags or the swell of his ass as he bends over to rifle through it. He definitely doesn’t think about bending Jonny over and fucking him right there because that would cross the line from confused to extremely gay, and Patrick is definitely not the latter.

“Keep it,” Jonny jokes as he throws the cold pack at Patrick, and Patrick rolls his eyes. Jonny’s so fucking lame.

“Thanks, man,” Patrick says. “Come over and steal some back any time.”

He makes his hasty escape before Jonny can notice how his dick’s half hard in his sweats, and if he has to jerk off in the shower again, Jonny’s name on his lips as he comes, it’s no one’s business but his own.

\--

They head to the rink as soon as they touch down in Vegas. Q’s yelling at them about taking idiotic penalties and how they can’t do that because their PK still sucks but Patrick’s learned to tune out the irrelevant things. It’s not like Q’s ever going to put him on the PK.

They end up doing a combination of drills and Q’s never-ending line roulette, which is only slightly amusing because they’re in Vegas. Jonny’s murder eyes are out in full force by the end of it, and he’s clearly about to yell at some poor, unsuspecting rookie when Seabs pulls him to one side and allows the rookie to escape. Seabs doesn’t have the murder eyes but Jonny’s looking at him as though he does, their voices low and fast and clearly furious, and Patrick turns back to his stickhandling practice, flicking the puck with more force than is really necessary.

Usually he’d just let Jonny yell at him until Jonny was out of words, but Jonny just existing is leading to inappropriate boners right now, and he isn’t sure if that would make things better or worse if he just kissed him out of anger.

Better for the rookie, probably. But definitely worse for him, and Jonny, and their whole weird relationship thing that’s been happening since Kaner woke up without his memories.

He waits until the rest of the team has left the ice before shooting the rest of his pucks at the empty net, trying to kill some time so that he doesn’t have to deal with Jonny. Jonny’s already in the shower by the time he gets back to the locker room, and Patrick manages to time it perfectly so that the only time he sees Jonny is when they pass each other on the way to the shower.

He ends up sitting next to Jonny on the bus because no one else will, and even though Jonny’s talking to him the whole time he doesn’t hear a word, just feels the warmth down his left side where Jonny’s pressed against him and lets himself sink into the way it spreads throughout his body.

“Kaner,” Jonny says, and Patrick blinks at him stupidly. “Are you even fucking listening to me?”

“Um,” Patrick says, because no, he hasn’t even heard one thing that Jonny’s said other than his name. “Yeah, I just—I’m kind of beat.”

Jonny nods, like that’s an acceptable excuse for not paying attention to anything except how warm Jonny is, and he carries on as if nothing ever happened.

The problem is that Patrick still can’t focus on anything except for Jonny’s mouth, pink and soft, and the tiny scar on his upper lip that Patrick wants to put his own mouth on.

He absolutely needs a drink. It’s barely afternoon, but he figures it’s five o’clock in Europe, and he’s in fucking Vegas. He’s not even sure that rule even applies here.

Patrick spends his afternoon at the Blackjack table, drinking the watered down free drinks that the waitresses offer. He knows the routine, knows that he could go up to the bar and pay what he’s tipping her for something stronger, but it’s just easier to slump into his seat and let someone else do the work.

He drinks less than he normally would, the champagne bitter on his tongue, but when he stands up he’s drunker than he expected. The room’s spinning a little and he stumbles his way back to his room, almost missing his floor when his reflections in the elevator mirrors catch his attention for a little too long.

The team are arguing over steak versus sushi by the time he reaches the lobby, and his stomach rolls at the thought of raw fish right now. Steak and potatoes sounds _perfect_ and he makes his thoughts known as he slumps into one of the oversized chairs, turning his face to rest it against the velveteen back, trying to hide his flushed face from his teammates. Well, mostly he just wants to hide it from Jonny, because Jonny’s the only one who will care if he’s spent the afternoon drinking.

He lets his mind drift until he feels a tap on his shoulder; he has no clue what they’ve all decided until he’s pulled aside by Seabs. They wait for the rest of the team to arrange themselves into cabs until they’re the last ones left, and he’s grateful when Seabs lets him slump against his side.

“We both know Jonny’s been acting like a freak,” Seabs says as the driver pulls onto the strip. “You want to tell me why?”

“He’s worried about my head,” Patrick says quietly; Vegas isn’t a hockey town by any stretch of the imagination, but there’s still the concern that they’ve ended up in the cab of the one person in this city who knows who they are. “You know Jonny.”

“Yeah,” Seabs says grimly. “That’s exactly why we’re having this conversation. Jonny’s always been weird about you, kid, but he’s being weirder than normal.”

“Jonny’s never been normal,” Patrick chirps weakly. It gets a soft chuckle from Seabs. “I’m okay, though. I don’t need—”

He cuts himself off, because he’s pretty sure he was about to end that sentence with _Jonny_ , and Patrick does kind of need him sometimes. He’s fairly certain he wouldn’t have three cups without Jonny, and he’s not sure he’d have the same support of management without Jonny at his back. Two halves of the future of their franchise, and they’ve always been better together than apart.

“Let me know if you want some space, okay?” Seabs says, and Patrick nods. “Me and Duncs, we can turn his intensity somewhere else for a while.”

“Pretty sure he hasn’t lost at Mario Kart recently,” Patrick says, and Seabs laughs at that, shaking his head a little.

“I think we can arrange that,” Seabs replies, grinning. “The rookies love to kick his ass. And yours.”

“Fuck you,” Patrick says, grinning around the words. “My Mario Kart skills are baller.”

Seabs doesn’t say anything to that, just snorts in disbelief and nudges Patrick’s shoulder with his own.

\--

By the time dinner’s over, Patrick’s lost most of his buzz, and when it’s suggested that they head to a club, he doesn’t say no. He had half a glass of wine with his steak—white, despite Jonny’s incredulous look that anyone would dare to pair white wine and red meat—but it had stuck in his throat, just as bitter as the champagne was. Wine was never his favorite, though, and the thought of something ridiculous and fruity is enough to have him climbing into a cab with TVR and a couple of the rookies.

They pile into the largest booth they can find, dragging extra chairs from the surrounding tables, and Patrick ends up squashed between Duncs and Jonny. The rookies—at least the older ones—are on alcohol duty tonight and they come back with pitchers of beer for the team, the amber liquid sloshing onto the table as they put the jugs down.

He pours himself one before anyone else can grab the pitcher from him and when he takes it sip it’s exactly like the beer he had in Angler. It leaves a weird taste in his mouth, the taste foreign on his tongue, and if he weren’t pressed against Jonny’s warmth he wouldn’t take another sip. As it is he can feel Jonny’s heat radiating through his clothing, his arm slung across the back of the booth so that his fingers are lightly resting on Patrick’s shoulder. Duncs has somehow commandeered half of the space meant for three, and if Patrick were any closer to Jonny he’d be in his lap.

There’s nothing he can do about it without looking like a freak, though, and instead of thinking about Jonny and his warmth, he stares into his beer and resolutely takes another drink. It’s still awful, but at least with the alcohol he can blame his flushed cheeks on something that isn’t arousal, and he’s halfway through his second before he notices there’s a rookie staring at him in a way that doesn’t make him feel too comfortable.

He shrugs Jonny’s arm away from his shoulders, leaning forward in an attempt to put some space between them because clearly they’re freaking the rookies out, but all Jonny does is give him a soft smile as his fingers brush over the bare skin above Patrick’s collar. Patrick feels himself flushing hotter, the same heat pooling in his stomach as Jonny tugs him closer, and he buries his face in Jonny’s shoulder without thinking. He smells good, like _Jonny_ , clean and familiar beneath the overwhelming smell of beer that permeates the room.

There’s a sheen of sweat covering his skin; in the dim lighting of the club Patrick can make out the dampness that clings to his hairline, the droplets forming at the collar of his shirt. He wonders what it would taste like, if Jonny would like it if Patrick lifted his head just slightly and pressed a kiss to the underside of his jaw, his tongue lapping at sweat damp skin.

“Kaner,” Jonny says quietly, and Patrick blinks up to see Jonny’s soft brown eyes staring back at him, impossibly dark in the dim lighting of the club and it shocks him back to reality. Reminds him that he shouldn’t be thinking of Jonny in that way, wanting to lick the sweat off his neck until Jonny’s moaning beneath him, begging Patrick to just _do something_.

He wrenches himself away from Jonny and over Duncs as fast as he can, stumbling over his own feet as he makes his way to the bar, his heart pounding in his chest. He doesn’t know what that was, why it’s _Jonny_ he’s so focused on when there are girls here, pretty girls with probably fake tits and yet he can’t stop wanting to press kisses to Jonny’s damp collarbone.

He’s still shaking as he orders two shots of vodka, and they don’t last long before he downs them one after the other; the burn in his throat is the best thing he’s felt all day, maybe in weeks, and he orders another two before he can regret his decision. He knows he’s not twenty-one anymore, that he can’t drink anywhere near as much as he used to, but maybe he can drink as much as he needs to forget Jonny’s stupid face for a while.

There’s a girl at the other end of the bar. She’s with a couple of friends but he can’t help noticing the glances that she keeps throwing his way, and he warmly smiles back. She’s pretty, slim and lithe, and he follows the curve of her body with his eyes. She ducks her head a little, blushing under his gaze, and he slowly makes his way over to her as she separates from her friends.

“I’m Pat,” he says, leaning close to her so that his breath ghosts over her ear, his hand gently resting on her upper arm, his thumb drawing soft circles on her skin.

“Saffron,” she replies. “And don’t think I didn’t notice that move.”

He laughs, because she’s clearly not as stupid as some of the girls he’s picked up over the years.

“Can I buy you a drink?” he asks, and she holds hers up with a small frown. It’s yellow and fruity and barely half finished, and Patrick dips his head until his mouth makes an ‘o’ around the straw, letting the cocktail wash over his tongue. It’s probably the best thing he’s tasted all night, pineapple and coconut, and just the tiniest hint of alcohol, and he wonders if he should order one for himself too. “How about now?”

“Sure,” she says with a smile, clearly amused. “Another piña colada’s fine.”

She’s easy to talk to, the alcohol making Patrick’s words flow more freely. He can feel the buzz from the alcohol, and he wonders how much is actually in this drink because he feels like he’s had so much more than two beers and four shots of vodka, and he can feel his speech slurring, his lisp more prominent. She giggles a little as he trips over some of his words, her hands warm where she’s touching him.

The room’s spinning a little when she drags him onto the dancefloor; she plasters herself against his body and presses her lips to his own. It’s sloppy, but she doesn’t seem to care, and he lets himself sink into the the taste of her lip gloss, the way her perfume smells, how her body’s so small compared to his own. She’s not Jonny, and for a second he’s distracted by the thought of having to lean up to kiss him, how Jonny would keep Patrick pressed against him by wrapping an arm around his shoulders, his face tucked into Jonny’s neck the same way it had been when they were sitting in the booth.

His hands are resting on her waist but he slides one across her back, pinning her against his body as he deepens the kiss. She opens up her mouth easily, letting him rub his tongue against hers, the taste of pineapple overwhelming his senses.

When he pulls away for air the room’s spinning, the heat prickling at his skin uncomfortably where she’s touching him, something curling uncomfortably in his gut. He jerks away from her. It feels like he needs to be not touching anyone, but there’s a blur of faces around him and no concept of personal space and the air’s sticky-hot when he sucks it in, and right now he just needs to not be there anymore.

He stumbles towards the bathrooms, pushing on the stall doors until he finds an empty one and he falls to his knees, wincing as they hit hard concrete. He doesn’t bother to close the door behind him, his stomach churning as he rests his head against the cool porcelain of the toilet seat, too drunk to care about hygiene. He feels like he’s going to puke and he closes his eyes, trying Jonny’s stupid breathing technique and hoping that his stomach will stop rolling.

“Kaner,” a familiar voice says, and Patrick turns his head just enough so that he can see Jonny’s silhouette and he can’t help the sob that falls from his mouth. The room’s spinning again, and Jonny’s fuzzy around the edges, and he groans as Jonny crouches down next to him, pressing a cool hand to Patrick’s forehead.

He feels the wetness on his face before he realizes he’s crying, his stomach still swirling dangerously as Jonny brushes a hand over his hair. It feels good, and Patrick leans into the touch, burying his face in Jonny’s palm in shame.

“Don’t feel good, Tazer,” he manages to mumble. “I don’t—I’m sorry, Jonny.”

“Stay here, okay?” Jonny says softly, and Patrick moans as Jonny takes his hand away. “I’m gonna get some water.”

“Okay,” Patrick says as Jonny moves his hand away, “I’m gonna be here.”

He thinks Jonny smiles at that but he can’t really tell, can’t focus on anything except for Jonny’s retreating back, and when he’s out of sight Patrick closes his eyes and forces himself to _breathe_.

\--

The headache when he wakes isn’t surprising. He has fleeting memories of beer and vodka but nothing concrete that he can point to and decisively say it’s the reason he feels like there’s a jackhammer in his skull. He rolls over tentatively, his eyes screwed firmly shut until he’s facing away from the window. Even with the curtains fully drawn, it’s still too bright, and his stomach rolls at the movement. His mouth tastes like someone threw up in there, and he quickly discovers that swallowing his own spit just makes it worse.

He carefully opens one eye to see two bottles on the nightstand—one Gatorade and one water—and a pile of Tylenol that he’s never been so thankful for. He reaches out gingerly, taking the water and four of the Tylenol, and when he’s done with the bottle he tosses it across the room. It makes a _thwack_ , almost as though it’s hit something, and when he finally focuses enough to figure out where he threw it, he sees the other bottles littering the floor.

Clearly someone brought him home last night and make him drink something, but he doesn’t remember anything past the girl at the other end of the bar. He thinks he kissed her, her lip gloss smearing across his mouth, but when he touches his fingers to his lips there’s no remnants of the sticky substance. He’s glad; he isn’t sure he wouldn’t be puking in the bathroom right now if there were anything resembling a smell or a taste. Even the Gatorade isn’t appealing.

Patrick wants to die; his head is pounding and everything _hurts_ , and he has no idea why he’d want to inflict this on himself. His brain can’t come up with an answer that isn’t _because you’re an idiot_ , and he wants to roll over onto his front and bury his head in a pillow, but he isn’t sure his stomach would take the abuse.

Instead he curls up into the fetal position and waits for the Tylenol to kick in. He doesn’t want to risk the noise of the television hurting his head even more, so he just stares at the wall and the stupid modern art picture hanging there. By the time the headache’s eased a little, he’s figured out that all modern art is stupid and that there’s a really annoying buzzing sound coming from the air conditioning system.

Except that buzzing sounds like his _phone_ , and shit, he thinks they had practice this morning. Q is going to kill him.

His phone is on the nightstand, next to the still unopened bottle of Gatorade, and it takes a few minutes squinting at his screen to be able to read the messages sitting there. There’s a bunch from the team, all chirping him in some form for his probable hangover, but he ignores them and goes straight for Jonny’s.

The first message reads _told q ur sick, drink the gatorade and eat something_. Clearly Jonny’s the reason he ended up back in his own bed and why he doesn’t feel quite as dehydrated as he should; Jonny’s a stickler for the one drink, one water rule, and from the bottles littering the floor he guesses that Jonny force fed him some kind of liquid last night.

 _lmk your alive asshole_ sits underneath it; Jonny had sent it twenty minutes ago, almost an hour after his first message, and Patrick’s 100% sure that he’d sent it right before the start of skate. He thumbs out a quick reply even though Jonny won’t see it for a while, letting him know that he isn’t dead but he wants to be. Even the thought of Jonny’s persistent nagging is enough to have him reaching for the Gatorade, and by the time he’s downed the whole bottle he feels a little more human.

Definitely human enough to call room service and have them deliver a platter of toast. It’s probably not the weirdest request they’ve ever had, especially in Vegas, and it isn’t long before he’s sitting cross legged on his bed munching on his lightly buttered toast. The carbs do a decent job of soaking up the excess alcohol in his system, and by the time he’s showered and dressed he feels as though he’s ready to face the world. Maybe not the gym, but the world he thinks he can manage.

There’s a knock at the door as he’s slipping his shoes on, and he mutters curses under his breath as the person doesn’t stop knocking. He’s about to curse out the person standing on the other side but when he pulls the door open it’s Jonny, and he stops with his mouth hanging open. He probably owes Jonny a thank you rather than some choice words about annoying knocking.

“You heading out?” Jonny asks, and Patrick nods.

“Yeah, I was going to grab some lunch.”

“Cool, I’ll come with,” Jonny says, and Patrick rolls his eyes. Jonny’s so fucking presumptuous.

“You interrupting my hot date, Toews?” Patrick says as he steps out into the hallway, expecting a chirp about Patrick not being able to pick up in Vegas, but Jonny’s face is _weird_ : he looks like he’s hurt, his expression twisted into a grimace, and Patrick remembers Jonny having the same expression last night, when they sat on the bathroom floor and Jonny made him take sips of water until he was satisfied that Patrick wasn’t going to puke.

“Uh, thanks,” Patrick says softly after it’s clear that Jonny isn’t going to reply to that comment. “For last night.”

“Anytime, Peeks,” Jonny says seriously, and Patrick knows he means it.

Jonny suggests sushi and Patrick’s about to violently protest when he sees Jonny’s face, the stupid smirk curling at the corner of his lips.

“Fucking asshole,” Patrick says, and Jonny laughs delightedly. “No raw fish.”

His stomach rolls at the _thought_ of raw fish and he grimaces. Clearly the toast didn’t worked as well as he thought.

“There’s a pub downstairs,” Jonny says. “We can eat there.”

Jonny doesn’t provide much conversation over lunch and Patrick’s thankful. His head’s not pounding anymore, just a dull ache that refuses to go away, but his mouth’s still dry and he’s not sure he could pull a hockey stat out of his brain if he tried. They’ve known each other for long enough that the silence isn’t awkward, and Patrick munches on his plain cheeseburger and fries while Jonny uses the side of his fork to cut his salmon.

The memories of last night assault him when Jonny cranes his neck to look for their waitress; Patrick wants to bite at the delicate skin that stretches over his adam’s apple, suck a bruise into his exposed collarbone. The apples of his cheeks are pink and rosy and Patrick wants to make the flush deeper, watch it spread down his neck the way it does after games. It’s overwhelming and _wrong_ , and he curls his fingers around the edge of the table because he has no fucking idea where these thoughts are coming from.

There must be something wrong with him, something that’s changed in the last couple of years, because he’s never looked at Jonny this way before. Never wanted to kiss a guy and mark him as _his_ the way he does with Jonny right now.

“I need to go,” he chokes out; Jonny takes one look at him before he nods, gesturing that he’ll get the check, but Patrick’s already stumbling out of the booth, fleeing towards the nearest elevator.

\--

The contents of the mini bar are spread over Patrick’s bed when the idea hits him. He giggles, because that pun was definitely not intended, and empties the tiny bottle of vodka that’s dangling between his fingers. He’s veering dangerously towards drunk again, his vision starting to blur a little at the edges, and he clumsily reaches across the bed for his phone.

It’s not like hockey players suffering from concussions is a new thing, and they’ve all heard about the side effects and the way that it can change someone’s personality. Patrick’s never blacked out on the ice; he knows the hospital said he didn’t have a concussion, but maybe the same theory applies for any kind of head trauma.

He types _can a head injury make you gay_ into his search bar and waits until Google helpfully loads a page of results. The first is an essay which, no. He has definitely had too much alcohol for a fucking essay. The second is an article of nothing more than speculation but the third is some newspaper article about a rugby player who apparently woke up gay. Patrick skims more than he reads, but it doesn’t point to anything conclusive except that the guy seemingly had a whole personality transplant.

And Patrick mostly feels like the same person except for wanting to kiss Jonny.

There’s a line in the article that sticks with him though, a line that he can’t help but be drawn to over and over: _’People grow up not knowing they are gay and have families and then they realize they are gay, but they don’t have a stroke to realize it. I think eventually if you hadn’t had the stroke it would have happened anyway.’_

And maybe the alcohol’s making things clearer, but maybe—maybe that’s _Patrick_. Maybe the hit made him realise something about himself, something that he was never willing to admit before. Because he’s an athlete and because he’s Catholic and because he’s _Patrick Fucking Kane_. Maybe the last two years of his life being a fucking hole has stopped him repressing something that he wasn’t even aware of.

That thought is enough to stop him in his tracks, the idea that he could be someone else completely utterly terrifying, and he curls his fingers around the nearest miniature bottle.

“I’m not drunk enough for this,” he says to the empty room, and he closes his lips around the plastic rim.


	6. Chapter 6

Somehow Patrick makes it to the bus on time the following morning. He’s not even the last of his teammates to make it to the bus. That dubious honor goes to Jonny, who looks as terrible as Patrick feels. Patrick’s using his sunglasses to hide the worst of the alcohol induced damage, but the dark circles under Jonny’s eyes indicate that he got approximately zero hours of sleep, and there’s the slight stab of guilt in Patrick’s gut at the four calls from Jonny that he’d missed after he blacked out last night. The idea that maybe Jonny’s lack of sleep had something to do with him.

Patrick stumbles his way through practice, off balance and two steps slower than usual, and he’s lucky that the whole team seem to be feeling the same effects of Vegas that he is. They’d joked about home team advantage when the rumors of a Vegas team had swirled, but Patrick hadn’t really thought it would end up being true. Jonny’s all grim determination and focus though, yelling at the rookies whenever they step out of line, and Patrick would feel sorrier for them if they hadn’t caused it themselves.

And maybe if he weren’t just a tiny bit thankful that Jonny isn’t yelling at him.

His hangover’s back in full force by the time he sits down in his stall, and he roots around in his bag until he finds the bottle of Tylenol that he’d thrown in there this morning. He downs a couple along with half a Gatorade, and when he looks up Jonny’s standing in front of him. He seems to be treading the line between concerned and pissed until Patrick tilts his head up a little to meet his eyes and sees the moment where the concern disappears, where Jonny sees the red rims around his irises.

Jonny shakes his head, almost imperceptible unless you know what you’re looking for; it’s Jonny’s standard way of telling someone that he’s disappointed in them. Patrick swallows the _I’m sorry_ that’s on the tip of his tongue and looks back towards the locker room floor, terrified that he’s going to do something ridiculous like press his cheek against Jonny’s sweaty stomach and relax into the touch that he knows Jonny would give.

Except that’s not bros, that’s _boyfriends_ , and Jonny might have told the hospital they were dating out of convenience but in real life it’s something that’s never going to happen. These feelings he's developed for Jonny aren't going away, and for the first time he realizes how much it's starting to affect hockey, how the alcohol still coursing through his blood stream is affecting his _life_.

The worst part is that the alcohol isn't doing anything to help. All it's doing it making Jonny even more disappointed in him.

“Hey, Kaner,” Schmaltz says, and Patrick looks in the direction of his stall. “You should have come out last night. Your girl was there.”

“Yeah?” Patrick asks, even though he can’t remember anything about her other than the piña colada and a blur of dark hair.

“She would have been a fucking home run, man. So fucking wasted,” someone else chimes in. “Didn’t want to get your dick wet in Vegas?”

“Uh,” Patrick says, and then realizes that half of the locker room is looking at him and he swallows. “Wasn’t feeling it.”

“You were definitely _feeling_ it,” the someone else says, clearly leering at Patrick, and there’s a chorus of giggles from the rookie corner. “And yeah, she was a butterface, but you gotta add points for a sure thing.”

“You should have fucked her then,” Patrick says, mostly because he feels he should say that. The only thing he knows for sure about her is that he’d wanted someone to distract him from wanting to suck bruises into Jonny’s neck, and she’d been the first person to show even a tiny spark of interest.

“Don’t do your sloppy seconds,” is the reply, and Patrick rolls his eyes.

“You could do worse,” he replies, but the conversation moved on to actual sloppy seconds—Patrick has that under the _never_ column in his sexual history, because he has no interest in fucking a chick after another guy, and he’s not dumb enough to do it without a condom anyway—and he goes back to taking his gear off methodically.

When he catches Jonny’s eye, Jonny doesn’t look as thrilled at chirping Patrick as the rest of the team did. He actually looks nauseous, like he’s going to have to deal with yet another one of Patrick’s fuck ups, and Patrick feels the familiar curls of guilt settling in his stomach. He never means to put Jonny in the position of defending him when he fucks up, and it’s not like he means to do it in the first place. But Patrick plus alcohol apparently isn’t the greatest of ideas now, and maybe—maybe it never had been.

“Don’t worry,” Patrick says, trying for a reassuring smile. “We’re in Vegas, and I’ve had worse on Deadspin. Don’t think Patrick Kane kissing a girl at a bar is going to be the headline it once was.”

“That’s not—” Jonny starts, and then shakes his head before he walks away from Patrick, and Patrick feels the guilt curl a little tighter.

\--

They lose their first ever game against the Vegas Outlaws. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so awful, but the team of misfits are clicking in ways that no one would have ever expected, and Patrick heads to the plane with a -3 for the first time all season.

It doesn’t take him long to fall asleep once he’s curled into his seat, and he dreams of Jonny crowding him into the window seat, his face pressed into Patrick’s neck as he rubs circles into Patrick’s hip with his thumb, but when he’s awoken by the lights for landing it’s Breadman who’s sitting next to him. Patrick sympathizes as Breadman blinks sleepily, his huge blue eyes clearly still trying to adjust to the sudden brightness.

Breadman sleepily slurs something in his direction as they climb onto the bus, and it takes Patrick almost two entire minutes before he realises that it wasn’t English. He feels stupid but it’s either really early or really late, and he asks Breadman what he said.

“Happy birthday. But Russian.”

Twenty-nine, he realises, because he’d forgotten it was his birthday. It never feels like it until he falls asleep in an actual bed and he tells Breadman that as they make their way to the hotel.

“It’s like Christmas,” Patrick says. “Santa doesn’t come unless you fall asleep. Same with birthdays.”

“Santa not real, Kaner,” Breadman says with a smile, and Patrick manages one in return despite the fact that it’s ass o’clock in the morning and he’s been ready to see any bed for the last three hours. He hopes that Jonny won’t haunt him in his dreams once his head hits an actual pillow, because Jonny hasn’t looked once in his direction for at least twelve hours, hasn’t said a word to Patrick since his lack of hookup was broadcasted across the locker room.

It would be hypocritical for Jonny to say anything about trying to take her home even though Patrick _hadn’t_ ; Patrick’s seen him leave with his share of girls whether he’s had a girlfriend or not. Patrick’s never bothered to ask Jonny the specifics of his relationships, but he’s always suspected they were exactly like his own: no hookups in Chicago, but the road is fair game.

Except Jonny doesn’t have a girlfriend right now, or at least Patrick doesn’t think he does. He hasn’t mentioned Lindsey since Patrick woke up in 2017, and Patrick didn’t want to ask the same way he didn’t want to ask about Amanda. So maybe Jonny’s jealous of him, that he found a girl who actually did want to go home with him. Maybe Jonny’s game’s been off, even though Jonny used to go home with the nines and tens that Patrick could only dream of.

Maybe tonight at his birthday thing he should try and set Jonny up as a thank you for everything that he’s done for Patrick over the last three weeks.

It seems like a good plan as he’s grabbing the keycard to his room, but he wakes up in the morning with a sticky mess on his stomach, his hand in the wet patch, and he re-files it under Patrick Kane’s Most Terrible Ideas.

He hasn’t had a wet dream since he was fifteen and even the slightest touch from a girl turned him on, except this time he knows he wasn’t dreaming about a girl. The thought of Jonny’s mouth stretched wide around his dick is burned into his brain, his lips pink and a little swollen, and Patrick feels his soft dick twitch helplessly against his thigh.

“No,” he tells his dick, but it doesn’t seem interested in listening to him.

He rolls himself out of bed, writing a note for the maid to have his sheets changed before he forgets, and heads towards the shower to wash away the proof of his sins.

\--

It doesn’t surprise Patrick when they end up at a steakhouse for his birthday dinner. It does surprise him that apparently Jonny’s gone all out, renting out the whole restaurant so that they can have privacy for one evening. Despite Jonny seemingly having arranged everything—if the other guys can be believed anyway—he leaves a wide berth between himself and Patrick, and tonight Patrick’s in no hurry to change that. He’s okay with enjoying his birthday tonight and dealing with the weirdness between him and Jonny tomorrow.

Or ideally _never_ , but that’s not really how he and Jonny work. Usually they sort out their shit by yelling at each other, but Patrick doesn’t want to have his birthday ruined by a screaming match.

The food’s good, and surprisingly, so is the company, not that Patrick would ever admit that out loud. He’s got Duncs and Hammer and TVR near him, Jonny at the other end of the huge table with Seabs and some of the rookies, and the alcohol’s flowing as it almost always does at team bonding events. Patrick’s not drinking much tonight; his liver has definitely been punished enough recently, and the taste of beer is still strange and foreign to him.

He takes a sip of Hammer’s drink when he goes to the bathroom, and TVR does a much less intimidating version of Jonny’s murder eyes. More than anything else it’s cute that he thinks it will work, because only Jonny can strike fear into the hearts of hockey players with nothing more than a look.

“That look doesn’t work on you,” Duncs says, hiding a grin behind his glass of wine, and Patrick nods in agreement. “You’re not nearly crazy enough.”

TVR shrugs, like he can’t really work out if that’s meant to be a compliment or an insult, and it’s not like Patrick can really help him because he doesn’t have a fucking clue either. Most hockey players would probably deal with having murder eyes if they could have three Cups, two gold medals and a second line to die for.

“It's just—” TVR starts, and then shakes his head. “I guess I didn't really expect you to start drinking again. I know you can't remember, but—”

“What do you mean, _start drinking again_ ,” Patrick interrupts, and any thoughts of a prank go out of the window when he watches TVR and Duncs have their _oh_ moment, their faces with identical, understanding expressions. “When did I _stop_ drinking?”

TVR looks terrified at the thought that he's going to have to answer the question, but thankfully for him, Duncs steps in and saves him from what's shaping up to be possibly one of the most awkward conversations of Patrick’s life. And that includes the sex talk with both his mother and father.

“A couple of summers ago. Some shit went down. We kind of joked about it. Got to win another cup before Kaner’ll touch alcohol again.”

“Shit,” he says, because he doesn't know if there’s anything else to say. He’d found the sexual assault allegations in his haze of drunken googling and he’d felt ill at the thought in a way that had nothing to do with the drink. It’s the only thing he’s glad he doesn’t remember.

“We all thought Jonny had told you,” TVR chimes in, and Patrick shakes his head.

And the thing is, it explains a _lot_. His hockey being another step above where it had been in 2015, this last week not included. The way the beer had felt bitter and foreign on his tongue. How his alcohol tolerance is shit, and how his hangovers are so much worse, both of which he'd just chalked up to _getting older_. How Jonny had looked at him in Angler when he'd ordered the beer, how he hadn't been judging Patrick for ordering Bud at all but he’d been judging him for _drinking_.

It's not like Jonny hadn't had the chance to tell him. But Patrick’s not really sure how he feels about it, because even if Jonny had told him, there's a good chance that he wouldn't have believed him.

“Bottoms up, boys,” he says, lifting Hammer’s glass to his lips again. “Sobriety starts tomorrow.”

Except he still hates the taste on his tongue, and instead of downing the drink like everyone’s expecting him to, he grabs the cocktail menu from the middle of the table, ignoring the chirps from the rest of the team as he orders the fruitiest drink he can find on there.

And if Jonny looks a little more disappointed in him than he had that morning? It’s Jonny’s own fucking fault.

\--

They’re still at odds with each other when they land in Anaheim. Patrick’s tired, weary in ways he hasn’t been since that first year and towards the end of it he’d spent most of his free time sleeping. Now it’s his stupid spat with Jonny’s that’s doing it; Jonny’s still looking at him like he killed a roomful of puppies, and Patrick’s sniping at him because it’s the only way he knows how to get through to Jonny when he’s like this. They spent the whole of the Sharks game yelling at each other to the point where Seabs had to separate them, shoving them to either end of the bench whenever they got within touching distance of each other.

It showed on the ice: Patrick was distracted, Jonny too, and despite the rest of the team clicking in ways that earned an appreciative nod from Q, they were handed a 2-1 loss. It’s their third loss in a row, all in regulation, and Patrick can feel the team fraying at the edges. He’s heard the rookies on the bus, whispering about how the old marrieds are fighting, and Patrick just wants it to stop. Arguing with Jonny is fun, sometimes, but he liked the easy friendship they’d settled into, the way they disagreed but were still respectful of the other’s opinion. Not _this_ , which is too reminiscent of their first year for Patrick’s liking.

They touch down in John Wayne airport mid-afternoon and head straight to the hotel. Patrick’s ready to throw his clothes into a pile and head to bed as soon as he can, despite the fact that it’s sunny and bright and eighty degrees, but he stops at the vending machines to grab a snack, and when he gets to his room, Jonny’s waiting for him outside, his murder eyes out in full force.

He doesn’t say a word as Jonny follows him into the room; he’s resigned to a screaming match now, and they’re hopefully far enough away from the rest of the team that they don’t hear them. One time, Sharpy took great glee in recording their whole argument and sending it to the group chat, and they might not have His Assholeness here now, but he wouldn’t put it past one of the older guys to do the same thing. And Patrick doesn’t care about the team hearing them scream at each other—they’ve all heard it too many times to care when it’s about hockey—but Jonny had made that particular argument personal, and he’d hated the team chirping him about it afterwards.

“Talk, Toews,” he says, making sure to pronounce his name correctly. He doesn’t want Jonny getting the wrong idea, that he’s using a nickname when he wants to punch him in the face and then kiss it better.

“Is your shoulder bothering you?” Jonny asks, his captain mode engaged, and Patrick shakes his head. “Your head?”

“I’m fine, Jonny,” Patrick says, but it doesn’t even sound believable to his ears. “I’d tell you if something was wrong, I’m not dumb enough to play with a concussion.”

It’s a low blow, and it hits Jonny where it hurts. He flinches, his eyes flicking away from Patrick and to a spot on the wall behind his head, and Patrick watches him compose himself before his murder eyes lock with Patrick’s.

Patrick hasn’t been scared of that look in _years_ , but Jonny’s looking more murderous than Patrick’s seen him in a long time, and he takes half a step back _just in case_. Jonny’s more likely to attack with words than fists, but Patrick’s not willing to take the chance.

“Then get your fucking head in the game, Kaner,” Jonny says, tone flat and more monotone than usual, and Patrick knows he means business. “Fucking focus out there. We both know you can be better. I—the whole team’s counting on you.”

Jonny doesn’t wait for an reponse, just strides towards the door until the handle’s under the palm of his hand. He hesitates for a moment before he slips out, slamming it behind him so that the door rattles in the frame. Patrick wants to follow Jonny, wants to grab his wrist and pin him to the wall and kiss him until neither of them can breathe, but when he finds himself in the hallway he makes himself stop before he does something he can’t take back.

Jonny’s two doors down, his forehead and palms resting against the wall, and Patrick watches the familiar breathing pattern, watches the tension flow out of Jonny’s shoulders. He longs to close the distance between them, to wrap his arms around Jonny’s waist and press kisses to the nape of his neck until Jonny comes undone.

Instead, he asks a question.

“Why didn’t you tell me I stopped drinking?” Patrick asks, and Jonny looks towards him. The murder eyes are gone, replaced by something that looks a lot like hurt, and Patrick hopes it’s not him that put it there.

“Because that was your decision to make, Peeks,” Jonny replies softly, but it seems loud in the empty hallway. “I don’t—I wasn’t going to tell you what to do. You might never get those two years back, and I guess—your parents, they wanted you to have a choice on how to live your life _now_.”

“Okay,” Patrick says, because _that_ he understands. “But I’m not gonna. Uh, drink, I mean. I don’t think I’m that guy anymore.”

“You’re not,” Jonny says with a smile, and Patrick feels his heart lurch at the way Jonny’s eyes crinkle and the stupid apples of his cheeks and how Jonny just softens, and he doesn’t know how he missed how attractive Jonny is when he’s just normal, dumb Jonny enjoying life. He wasn't actively _looking_ before, but he would have said that Sharpy was an attractive guy, all cheekbones and perfect hair. But there's something sweet and wholesome about Jonny. He looks exactly like the type of guy who you'd want to take home to meet your parents, except—

Patrick’s pretty sure he stops breathing for a second, because _holy shit_ , this isn't just him finding Jonny attractive. He has _feelings_ for Jonny. Feelings that are distinctly not platonic.

“I'm gonna crash for a while,” he says, hoping that he manages to make his voice sound normal before he flees back to his room, locking the door behind him and sliding the deadbolt into place. He takes a moment to just _breathe_ , focusing on making the rest of the world slip away until his mind is clear, and then he thinks _fuck_.

Patrick isn't sure how he feels about this new development, but the way Jonny looked at him in the hallway seemed familiar somehow, like Jonny looks at him like that _all the time_ , and Patrick has no idea what to do with that information. Wanting to fuck Jonny and wanting to _date_ him are two entirely different things, but it’s all too easy to imagine soft, sleepy mornings in bed with Jonny, a heavy arm draped over his waist as Jonny trails kisses across the back of his shoulders, how he’d complain about morning breath but kiss Patrick anyway.

He eyes the minibar wistfully before he flops down onto the bed and buries his face into the pillow. He’s been ready to start nap time for the last thirty minutes, and he hopes that by the time he wakes up he’ll have figured out a solution to the Jonny Problem.

\--

Patrick skates hard at Wednesday’s practice, and Jonny isn’t looking at him like he wants to kill him, so Patrick chalks it up as a win. He stays out on the ice after everyone else has headed back to the locker room, practicing his shots on goal even though Crow and Darls are long gone, and when he’s out of pucks he looks up to see Jonny alone on the bench, just watching Patrick. He’s smiling, like he’s enjoying the show, and well, Patrick’s never going to say _no_ to that.

He starts retrieving the pucks, skating back to the blue line with a couple of them, and starts the routine again except this time he’s adding in all of his best moves. The spin-o-rama is the star of the show, and when he ends with the heartbreaker celly, he hears Jonny laughing at him.

“You like what you see?” he yells across the ice as he skates towards Jonny, and he watches Jonny freeze for a split second before he pastes the smile back on his face. It doesn’t make sense, not unless Jonny saw something on his own face that looked a lot like the feelings he’s reluctant to put a name to.

“You know I love your hands,” Jonny says seriously as he leans against the boards. “But the celly only gets a six-point-five. A for effort, but a C for creativity.”

“Fuck you,” Patrick says, but he can’t miss the curve of Jonny’s mouth, the way he’s trying so hard not to give away that he’s just having his fun for the day.

“You need some new moves, Kaner.”

“Says the man who doesn't even have one go-to move. Or maybe that’s just because you never get to use it.”

It’s not true; Jonny’s 2017 has been his career year. Something changed after the All-Star Game, something _good,_ and ever since then Jonny’s been on fire. It didn’t get them another Cup, but it earned him a Hart nomination, and Patrick wishes that he’d won it. It would have been nice to have their names together again. Jonny’s stats are even better than when they played on a line together, and he has to blink away an image of Jonny asking him what he has to do to improve on the ice, shoulder to shoulder in a hotel room, but he doesn’t remember what he told Jonny.

Whatever it was, clearly it had worked. And that’s enough reason to stop pulling away from Jonny, because ever since he’d run away from Jonny they’d been a shit show.

“You done out here?” Jonny asks, and Patrick nods. “You looked good today, Peeks.”

“Got my head back in the game,” Patrick says, but he can’t keep a straight face, and Jonny rolls his eyes as he knocks their shoulders together companionably.

“You got plans this afternoon?” Jonny asks when they’re halfway down the corridor, and Patrick’s about to say _no_ except then he realizes that he _does_ have plans because he’d been fighting with Jonny, and it had felt weird when he hadn’t had anyone to hang out with.

“I’m going to the pool with Breadman,” Patrick says, and he watches Jonny’s face fall a little. “Gonna work on my tan.”

“You barely tan, Peeks,” Jonny says, laughing a little, and Patrick shoves at him because he does tan, fuck you very much. Maybe not as much as Jonny with his perfect golden skin, but he’s not _that_ pale. “I don’t think SoCal in November is going to make that much difference to your vampire skin.”

“We can’t all walk around half naked at the first sign of the sun, Jon.”

“You’d blind people if you did that,” Jonny says, and Patrick waits for the inevitable chirp. “You’re so fucking pale you’d just reflect the light.”

And Patrick’s heard that before. Maybe not the exact words, but the sentiment. Maybe at the lake, because it was definitely warm enough for Jonny to be shirtless—although that doesn’t take much at all—but Patrick was still wearing a t-shirt in the picture of them with the fish.

“You need to stop reusing your chirps, Taze,” Patrick says as he pushes the door open to the locker room. “I’m only giving that a six-point-five. A for effort, C for creativity.”

Jonny looks stunned, like he can’t believe that Patrick would use his own words against him, and Patrick laughs and laughs and laughs.

It’s the most normal he’s felt with Jonny in the last week, and it feels so fucking good.

\--

Jonny doesn't so much request his presence for dinner as demand it in his typical Jonny fashion. It doesn't bother Patrick now, knows it's just Jonny’s way of showing the team that he cares, and he manages to type out an _ok dude should i dress up fancy for you???_ before he closes his eyes and throws his arm over them to block out the sun.

It’s warm, even with the slight breeze, and he drifts in and out of sleep until he’s dreaming of hands and mouths and Jonny’s soft brown eyes and the way Patrick’s name falls from his lips like—

Like it’s doing right _now_ , Patrick realises, because he blinks and Jonny’s in front of him, the hint of a frown pulling at his mouth. His hand’s resting on Patrick’s bare arm and it feels like a brand, searing heat where his palm touches Patrick’s skin, and Patrick brushes the touch off before it causes something that he wouldn’t be able to explain.

“It’s almost six,” Jonny says, and Patrick’s about to tell Jonny it can’t be except the sky’s rapidly darkening, the clouds edges in burnt orange, and he isn’t entirely sure what time the sun sets in California but he’s pretty sure it’s not mid-afternoon anymore.

“I fell asleep,” Patrick says, which, _duh_. He’s sure Jonny knows that. “We’re still doing dinner, right?”

“Yeah,” Jonny says. “But you gotta hurry. We have reservations in thirty minutes.”

“Fine, grandpa,” Patrick chirps, because Jonny eats like he’s sixty. “Meet you in the lobby in fifteen?”

Jonny pulls out his phone, thumbing at the screen for so long that Patrick isn’t sure whether or not he’s meant to still be here, until he nods and Patrick scrambles off his lounge chair as fast as he can.

It takes five minutes just to get up to his room, and by the time he’s rummaged through his suitcase and found something relatively clean to wear there isn’t time for a shower. He’s still sunscreen sticky as he pulls on his clothes, his skin itching with a hint of sunburn as the fabric brushes over it. Maybe Jonny was right about his vampire skin.

He makes it to the lobby with thirty seconds to spare—Jonny timed him on his phone, and Patrick chirps him for it mercilessly as they step out into the cool California evening. It’s almost dark now, the sun dipping behind the mountains, and Patrick tries hard not to look at the way the streetlights accentuate the lines of Jonny’s jaw.

It doesn’t take long for Patrick to figure out where they’re going—the signs pointing to Disneyland are a pretty big giveaway—and Jonny guides him towards Downtown Disney, his fingertips pressed against Patrick’s back. They blend easily into the crowds of tourists, no one giving a second glance to two hockey players in Southern California.

They end up at a restaurant that says it serves New Orleans cuisine, and Patrick’s mouth is already watering as he reads through the menu. The change from steak or sushi is welcomed at this point in the trip, and he’s having trouble deciding between the pasta jambalaya and the blackened chicken mac and cheese when a thought occurs to him.

“Can you even eat anything here?” Patrick asks, because Jonny’s body is ridiculous, and he doesn’t want Jonny to be sick all night because he decided to try something new.

“I called ahead,” Jonny replies, ducking his head a little in embarrassment. “They can do no gluten and no dairy.”

“Good,” Patrick says, his misplaced concern for Jonny’s stomach fading. “You’re not getting enough sleep as it is, Toews.”

“Could say the same about you,” Jonny says, and Patrick cringes. For Jonny to notice that he hasn’t been sleeping, he must look worse than he thinks he does. “You’d tell me if something was wrong though.”

It’s not a question, but Patrick nods a reply anyway, even though it’s a lie. Thankfully their waitress appears and the conversation turns to Kesler’s line, and Patrick’s grateful that Jonny never presses further about the fact that he can’t sleep without dreaming about Jonny.

The food’s good, but he knows that Jonny doesn’t eat anywhere without reading a hundred reviews on TripAdvisor, and he’s learned to trust Jonny’s judgement on most places. He’d definitely eat here again the next time they get a free evening in Anaheim, and the wide smile on Jonny’s face when he tells him that is more than enough to make Patrick’s stomach curl in the best way.

At Jonny’s insistence, Patrick gets beignets to go. He doesn’t offer to share them with Jonny, because fried dough is a huge step towards making sure Jonny spends all night in the bathroom. But they are delicious, and Patrick spends as much time as he can licking the powdered sugar off his fingers, swirling his tongue around each digit after each bite of deliciousness. Jonny pretends to be embarrassed by him, the faint blush on his cheeks even visible in the low lighting, but Patrick doesn’t believe a second of it.

“So, what now?” Patrick asks as he finishes the last beignet, and Jonny nudges him in the direction of the security checkpoint. It’s not the way they came, but he trusts Jonny, and even if he didn’t, he has Google Maps. He’s fairly certain they can find their way back to the hotel.

He doesn’t expect Jonny to tug on his sleeve when they’re halfway across the plaza outside the park entrance, and he definitely doesn’t expect him to tell Patrick to stay right here.

He’s about to ask _what_ when the lights dip and the music stops, and then the sees the first explosion in the sky.

“Just in time,” Jonny murmurs, his lips so close that they brush the shell of Patrick’s ear when he speaks. Patrick doesn’t manage to repress the shiver that runs through him, but at least he can blame it on the cold, the breeze stronger than it was earlier in the afternoon.

Jonny slings his arm across Patrick’s shoulders somewhere throughout the admittedly fantastic firework display, and Patrick leans into the touch without thinking, resting his head on the crook of Jonny’s arm. The chances of someone recognizing them is around zero; California plus dark plus fireworks display means that the chances are minimal. Patrick thinks he can take that risk when Jonny’s so warm and soft that he just wants to curl into his body and never let him go.

The finale is spectacular, the whole sky lit up in whites and pinks and blues, and when he glances up at Jonny to tell him that it was amazing, Jonny’s already looking back at him, his expression unreadable.

It would be easy to close the gap between their mouths, but it would also be _stupid_ , and Patrick lets himself count to five before he pulls back from Jonny, putting the necessary space between them.

“Thanks,” Patrick says, his voice a little shaky because the whole evening was kind of perfect. _Best date ever_ is on the tip of his tongue, but he swallows the words, makes sure he doesn’t think about how well Jonny knows him and how he wants them to do this all the time. “We should get back to the hotel.”

“Yeah,” Jonny says after a couple of seconds, his expression shifting so the furrow in his brow is back. “Morning skate tomorrow.”

“And you definitely need your beauty sleep,” Patrick chirps, and Jonny shoves at him.

“It’s sad that it doesn’t work on everyone, Peeks,” Jonny chirps back, and it should break the spell, but all it does is make Patrick want _this_ more than he already does.


	7. Chapter 7

They lose to the Ducks in a shootout but beat the Kings, and Patrick’s feeling a lot better about his place on the team when they land in Colorado. It’s chilly compared to Southern California but nothing compared to Chicago, and the bright, sunny morning has enticed Patrick to sit outside at the hotel Starbucks. He still isn’t sleeping past sunrise, no matter how tightly he tries to close the curtains in his room, and practice isn’t for another few hours.

He’s learned to savor these moments on the circus trip, the brief few hours where he isn’t asleep and he’s not surrounded by team, and he can just have some time to catch up with his friends and family. The group chat with his sisters is the most active of his text conversations and he’s catching up on the latest gossip from Buffalo when a separate text from Erica pings.

_Mom wants pix from nhl awards for fam christmas card, apparently she has asked you for them before?_

Patrick doesn’t actually remember his mom asking for any pictures, but it’s not like he can remember much at all since the NHL awards. He knows he isn’t the best person at replying to emails or texts if someone’s waiting for something: he’s busy, and sending people information that’s not time sensitive has never been his strong point. But he doesn’t really have anything better to do right _now_ , and figures that they’re not going to be too hard to locate.

It’s easy enough to go back into his photos and scroll through them before he realises that his phone doesn’t go back to June. The earliest picture he has is from July; him and Jonny and Duncs and Seabs at dinner somewhere, and he realises it’s probably from around the time of the convention.

He texts back _my phone only goes back to july tell mom sorry_.

 _Mom says you said they were in the cloud_ is what he gets back two minutes later, and Patrick sighs before grabbing his coffee and heading back to his room.

It doesn't take long to log into the cloud once he's grabbed his laptop, and it's easy enough to forward the ones of him and his family to his mom. Patrick might be the star of the family, but his mom always includes all four of her children equally on the cards, proud of each of them in their own ways. There are some nice photos of the four of them, and then one where you can clearly see down Jackie’s dress. Patrick hopes she doesn’t pick that one, and he has an urge to run back to Vegas and punch whichever waiter decided that would be a great photo to take of his baby sister.

There’s a picture of him and Jonny and both sets of their parents, followed by a stupid selfie of just him and Jonny. Jonny's cheeks are flushed, the way they always get when he's had any kind of alcohol, his eyes bright and his arm curled around Patrick’s shoulders. They look happy and relaxed, the rest of the world blurry and out of focus, like they’re the only two people who mattered in that moment. The next picture is just of Jonny and Jess; they’re leaning against a wall with glasses of something in their hand. Jonny’s tie is undone, the top of his shirt unbuttoned, and Patrick’s heart does something he’d rather not think about. Because Jonny looks unfairly good in his charcoal grey suit and if he didn’t know better he’d say that Jonny was flirting with the only sister he’s never had to feel protective over.

And it’s that thought that makes the memory click; he’d taken the photo of the two of them before he’d interrupted their conversation and teasingly asked Jonny if he was flirting with his sister. Jonny had told him no, his eyes crinkling in the way they do, and that _you’re more than enough Kane for me, Peeks_ , and Patrick had just stupidly smiled back at him, lost for words.

He doesn’t know if the feelings he has for Jonny _now_ are coloring his memory, but he swears he feels the same rush of affection he felt for Jonny as when they watched the fireworks together.

 _Maybe you should take your own advice, Pat_ rings in his ears, and he hadn’t understood then but maybe, _maybe_ Jess had meant Jonny and he could fucking talk to someone about this. He’s dialing her number before he can think about regretting the decision, because there’s no one else, and she’d been the one to bring it up, to imply that he might want something other than friendship with someone he works with. She answers on the third ring, but after her greeting it feels like there isn’t enough air in the room, his throat dry, and he can’t find the words he was looking for.

“Pat, the idea is that if you call someone, you actually have to talk at some point. I know it’s never been a problem for you before.”

“Shut up, Jessie,” he says, and he can practically hear her roll her eyes. She hates that nickname. “No, I. Erica asked me to look for the NHL Award photos, and—”

“Oh, awesome,” Jess interrupts, and this time it’s Patrick’s turn to roll his eyes, because _sisters_. “Mom’ll be pleased, she was bugging you about them for months before—”

She stops abruptly, clearly not sure of what to say, and it would be amusing if it wasn’t in the middle of Patrick’s hour of need.

“Before Patrick turned into a soap opera character,” he finishes, and he hears her soft laugh through the phone. “But, uh, there’s a picture of you and Jonny, just talking, and…”

“Your sister still has her virtue,” she says, “or, well. Jonny didn’t take it, anyway.”

“Gross, Jess,” Patrick says, because he absolutely did not hear that. As far as Patrick is concerned, his sisters have never been past first base with any guy. “And he’s not an idiot.”

Jess snorts in disbelief at that, and Patrick pauses.

“You’re both idiots. Because I had to listen to ‘Jonny should have won the Hart’ for the first half of the night, and then ‘Patrick’s so amazing, he’s so talented, he has great hands’ for the second.”

“He probably should have won the Hart,” Patrick agrees, and it’s not like he remembers a lot of the season, but it’s _Jonny_ ; he’s the best captain in the league, and Patrick wouldn’t want to play with anyone else.

“We both know that’s not what I’m saying, Pat,” Jess says after a second. “And if you just called me to ask if I slept with Jonny, then—”

“I didn’t,” he interrupts, and then has to pause to take a moment for himself. His heart feels as though it’s going to beat out of his chest, and he’s shaking a little. He’s glad for the privacy of his hotel room right now. “But I think I want to. Sleep with him.”

He says the last part so quietly he isn’t sure Jess hears him; there’s just silence on the other end of the phone, and he feels the knot tighten in his stomach, the hurt of the rejection curling tighter because maybe he was wrong. Maybe she didn’t mean Jonny at all, maybe there’s a girl in the office that he likes instead. There’s an echo in his head, the priest telling him that homosexuality is a sin, but he doesn’t know when or where it happened and he pushes the memory away before the nausea can overwhelm him, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth, following Jonny’s directions in a way that Jonny would be proud of.

“Pat?” Jess is asking when he manages to blink himself back to reality, and there’s a hitch to her voice that sounds a lot like panic, which, _shit_. “Pat, I didn’t mean—I’m sorry, I just didn’t really expect you to say that, you know, and—”

“I’m here, Jess,” Patrick says, and he hears a sigh of relief. “Sorry. It’s just—it’s a lot right now.”

“Not every day you get to star in your own soap opera,” she teases, and Patrick’s mouth twists itself into a grin. “If you want to talk, I’m not going to judge. I’m not—I didn’t _know,_ Pat, but I kind of guessed, maybe. Otherwise, I know your credit card number and you can help me pick out some new shoes.”

It’s an empty threat and Patrick knows it, but there’s a reason he called Jess, and it wasn’t to pay for the next pair of heels she wants.

“You told me to take my own advice,” he starts, “when I told you to ask the guy from work out.”

“Which, b-t-w, is going great, thanks for asking,” she interrupts, and he can hear the genuine affection in her voice for this guy. Who he doesn’t actually know the name of. He should probably fix that at some point, but now isn’t the time. “And maybe you should do the same thing, Pat. You were really happy at the end of last season, and then you went to Winnipeg, and—”

“Winnipeg?” he asks, because _what_. He knows that Winnipeg isn’t really a frozen wasteland in summer, not with the way that Jonny always comes back to Chicago golden and tan, but he’s never wanted to spoil the illusion that it might be.

“Yeah, you went to see Jonny. He didn’t tell you?”

“No, he didn’t,” Patrick says, and there’s a heavy feeling that settles in his stomach because apparently Jonny hasn’t told him a bunch of stuff that other people assumed he would. “Did I—do you know why I went?”

“No,” Jess says after a pause. “You didn’t tell anyone you were even going. Mom found out from her Google alert.”

“Shit,” he says, and he means it. He can’t imagine the chewing out he got for doing that, but there must have been a good reason for him to go, one that didn’t involve him following Jonny back to his hometown just _because_.

His phone dings with a new message. It’s from Jess, and when he clicks on the link it takes him to a page of photos of him in Winnipeg with Jonny. Some of them are candids; there’s a photo of them in a restaurant together, a couple of them walking through parts of the city he’s never seen before, a handful with fans and then one they’ve taken from Jonny’s Instagram. It’s a picture of them standing outside the Jonathan Toews Community Centre, Patrick with a bored look on his face and Jonny trying not to laugh, the lines at the corners of his mouth there for anyone who knows him to see.

There are a variety of outfits and settings, clearly taken over a few days, but there’s a common theme. Patrick looks happy and relaxed, like everything he’s ever wanted is standing right next to him, like he’s exactly where he wants to be.

Like these feelings for Jonny aren’t new at all.

Jess is talking again, something about him losing his phone at the lake and not being able to contact him for days, but Patrick’s drawn to the way his body curves into Jonny’s like it belongs there, how his smile is just a little wider when Jonny’s hand is curled around his hip. He doesn’t remember if he’d admitted to himself what he was clearly feeling for Jonny then was more than friendship, but he can see enough evidence that he was definitely feeling _something_.

The only problem is that Jonny isn’t looking back at Patrick in the same way. He’s looking at Patrick the same way he has for the last ten years, fond and happy, but nothing that indicates more than friendship and respect. And no matter what Jess says, no matter how amazing Jonny thinks his hands are, he knows he needs to get over him because that’s just _hockey_. It’s not like Jonny hasn’t said the same thing to the press a million times.

Constantly dreaming about Jonny’s mouth and hands and ass for the last two weeks has been driving him insane, and Patrick doesn’t want to do that for the rest of his life when he knows there’s no chance of it ever being reciprocated.

\--

They end the trip on a win, and when they land back in Chicago on Monday morning, Patrick’s no closer to figuring out exactly how he’s going to move on from wanting to kiss Jonny.

He accepts the offered ride home without a second thought; it's not like his car is there, and Jonny’s passenger seat is comfortable enough that he can catch a few more minutes of sleep before he crawls into his bed.

His dreams are filled with familiar dark eyes and soft touches, Jonny looking at him in wonder when Patrick pushes inside him, rough fingers stroking his jaw until Jonny whispers _I love you_ against his mouth.

Except it feels _real_ , and Patrick’s dragged out of his dream with his name on Jonny’s lips, and Jonny’s fingers trailing over his skin the same way he’d dreamed about. Jonny's so close, close enough to see the scars on his face, the hint of stubble sitting across his jaw. It would be easy to close the distance between them and kiss him.

Patrick doesn't, but he doesn't look away either, just leans into Jonny’s hand as much as he dares. Jonny doesn't say a word, not until Patrick’s eyes flutter shut again, and then he breaks the spell.

“Peeks,” he says softly. “If we stay out here much longer I'm gonna get a ticket.”

“Oh,” Patrick says, realising for the first time that they're outside Trump Tower. “Yeah, sorry, I didn't—”

He pulls himself away from Jonny’s touch before he scrambles out of the car, remembering to breathe before he grabs his things. He misses Jonny’s warmth instantly, but the cold night is sobering, and he feels close to normal by the time he tap on the window to wave goodbye.

Jonny’s staring straight ahead, his fingers clenched around the steering wheel. His face is hidden by shadows but there's the telltale sign of the clench of his jaw, and Patrick realises he's probably wearing his best captain face, the one that means just business. It's so different from the Jonny he'd seen seconds earlier, and Patrick doesn't know what to do. There's no reason for Jonny to be acting like—like he’s trying to forget exactly what just happened in the car. It's not like he's the one who's trying to lock his feelings away.

Unless Patrick said something while he was asleep. Patrick doesn't think he sleep talks but he was half hard when Jonny told him to get out. Maybe Jonny saw that, put two and two together. Maybe Jonny saw what had to be written all over his face as Patrick thought about kissing him.

The only solution to this problem is to spend as little time with Jonny as possible. He knows it’s not going to be easy when they have to see each other every day, but he hopes that space will dull his feelings to at least a manageable level.

The first step is to tell Jonny that he’ll drive himself to skate the following morning. He’s not brave enough to do it in person, and after he’s safely locked in his condo he sends a quick text message saying that he'll see Jonny at skate tomorrow and that he should really start driving himself again.

It takes Jonny nine hours to send a reply, a short _ok._ that Patrick hates.

\--

Patrick tries not to look at Jonny during skate on Tuesday, and it only kind of works. Q’s having them work on the power play—and for good reason—and more often than not, he’s working on set plays with Jonny. His timing’s off; every time he looks at Jonny his breath catches in his throat with _want_ , and eventually he misses enough passes that Jonny yells at him.

It pisses him off enough that he’s determined to prove to Jonny he can fucking _play_ , and he only realizes that was Jonny’s plan when Jonny congratulates himself afterwards. Patrick wants to kiss the smug smile off his face, wants to pin him against the boards until Jonny’s breathless and stupid, but all he does is skate away. He hates that Jonny knows how to push all of his buttons except it’s part of the reason they have three cups.

And it’s not like it doesn’t work both ways.

Breadman suggests lunch while they’re waiting for Jonny and Q to tweak the play they’re working on, and Patrick takes the offer without hesitating. He thinks it’ll be nice to have a meal without Jonny; they’ve been eating a lot together over the last month, and this way Patrick doesn’t have to sit on the other side of the table and try not to think about how soft Jonny’s mouth looks.

They end up at Palace Grill because it’s convenient, and Patrick doesn’t even bothering opening his menu. It’s not like he hasn’t eaten here before.

“You look stress,” Breadman says once they’ve ordered. “You and Jonny fight?”

“No, we’re—” he starts. “It’s just been a lot, recently.”

“Good. Is not fun, when marrieds fight,” Breadman says with a huge smile, and it’s clearly meant to be a joke. Patrick manages to laugh before he’s picturing Jonny in a tux, reciting wedding vows in front of their families and friends, looking at Patrick the way he always does. It hits Patrick harder than all the times he’s thought about having sex with Jonny, because this isn’t just some fantasy because he hasn’t gotten laid in a while. This is wanting a future with Jonny that doesn’t end once they step off the ice.

“Got to think of the kids, right?” Patrick says after he’s collected his thoughts, and Breadman grins back at him.

Even with the language barrier it’s fun to talk to Breadman. He’s not as innocent as the curls and wide blue eyes suggest, and he’s midway through telling Patrick about the threesome he had in Russia when Patrick wonders why they don’t do this so much anymore. They _used_ to, that much he knows, because he feels like he’s unlocked a box of memories of them in various cities around the US and Canada. But it doesn’t really feel like many of them are recent.

“You with Jonny, mostly,” Breadman replies when he asks. “Is okay, I have rookies. They more fun than you.”

“Asshole,” Patrick says, but there’s no heat to his words, and Breadman laughs delightedly.

“Is good, though. You very happy, is good for team.”

He thinks back to the photos he’d seen of him and Jonny, how he’d been fucking glowing in each one, and realises that if his teammates are thinking the same thing about him then this stupid crush is probably worse than he thought. Hockey players aren’t the smartest; too many hits to the head, too stupid to really see what’s right in front of them. But Breadman noticed. And Seabs asked him about Jonny acting weird, which probably means he’s also noticed _Patrick_ acting weird.

And Patrick doesn’t want that. He just wants everything to go back to the way it was before, where no one could see his stupid feelings written all over his face because he didn’t have any fucking feelings.

“Me, you and the rookies. We’ll go to Rockit at the weekend,” Patrick says. Breadman readily agrees, and he’s sure that he won’t have to convince any of the rookies when he can ply them with alcohol.

Patrick’s master plan mostly involves finding a girl who’s willing to go home with him though, a girl who can help take his mind off Jonny for a few hours, and he’s more likely to find that in Chicago than he is anywhere else.

\--

The plan to avoid Jonny outside of the rink lasts until after skate the following day. Jonny’s talking about Wednesday Night Rivalry and pizza and Mario Kart, and Patrick ends up agreeing that he’ll be at Jonny’s place at six thirty. He has no excuse not to attend a team bonding night, at least, not one that he can give the rest of the team.

Jonny’s new place is only twenty minutes from his own, and Patrick decides to walk. He tugs his toque over his ears and tucks his hands in his pockets as he steps out into the cold Chicago night. The walk is familiar, Patrick not needing the route he’d programmed into his phone before he’d left his condo, and eventually he spots Jonny’s building.

The lobby is warm and inviting and the doorman—Michael, he notes—greets him with a nod, and says, “Haven’t seen you in a while, Mr Kane,” as Patrick’s tugging his toque off.

“Uh, yeah,” Patrick says, still processing the fact that he must come here a lot for Jonny’s doorman to comment on it. “Long road trip.”

“Must be nice to be home,” Michael says, and Patrick nods. “Head on up. You know where you’re going.”

Patrick _doesn’t_ , but there’s only one elevator and he presses the button for the nineteenth floor without a second thought, and then rolls his eyes. Patrick might take most of the chirping about putting his number on everything, but there’s absolutely no way that Jonny buying a condo on the nineteenth floor of a new build is a coincidence.

There are only two doors on Jonny’s floor and Patrick turns to the right instinctively. He lets himself in, kicking his shoes off by the door because he doesn’t want to get bitched at, and yells that he’s here.

It doesn’t take Jonny long to appear, a smile curling at the corners of his mouth.

“Hey,” Jonny says. “Pizza’ll be here in an hour. You know where the snacks are.”

“O-kay,” Patrick says, and wanders towards the kitchen to investigate Jonny’s cupboards. He expects to only find healthy shit, or maybe a box of Lucky Charms if Jonny’s feeling indulgent that week. Instead he finds a plethora of actual snacks behind the first door and takes a packet of his favorite flavor of Doritos. He grabs a couple of Gatorades from the refrigerator and follows the sound of the television to find Jonny.

Patrick finds him in the media room, the huge television already tuned to NBCSN. Jonny’s stretched out on the couch that they both still own, a beer dangling between his fingers, and he doesn’t look at all ready to play host to twenty hockey players.

And—Patrick’s sure he’s not early. When he checks his watch he realises that it’s already past six thirty, and no one else is here yet.

“You need me to help set up?” Patrick asks as he flops onto the couch. Jonny blinks at him owlishly, like he’s trying really hard to understand exactly what Patrick just said. Patrick didn’t think it was complicated.

“Set up for what?” Jonny asks, and Patrick can see the confusion on his face, the crease in his forehead that Patrick wants to press a kiss to.

“For the rest of the team?” Patrick says, and he watches Jonny’s expression slide into realization.

“No, that’s—” Jonny starts, and he shakes his head. “It’s just me and you. Sorry, I thought you remembered, you didn’t say anything, and—”

“Oh,” Patrick says. He feels stupid, and he definitely wouldn’t have agreed to this if he’d known that he’d have to be alone with Jonny all night. It breaks the only rule of his plan to get over Jonny. “No, I—I didn’t. Remember.”

“It’s kind of a thing now, Peeks,” Jonny says. He takes a sip of his beer, and Patrick can’t help but watch his mouth forms an ‘o’ around the bottle neck. “Wednesday Night Rivalry and pizza. You, uh, you found this gluten free place, and—it’s pretty good.”

“Sounds perfect,” Patrick says, even though it sounds anything but perfect right now. “It’s Flyers at Pens, right?”

Jonny nods, and then he’s talking about how unfair it is that the Penguins have three top lines, and Patrick takes a minute just to remind himself to breathe. He can do this. It’s just hockey and pizza. A time-honored bro tradition. He’s almost the length of the couch away from Jonny, and maybe if the game’s good enough he can stop thinking about the way that Jonny’s lips looked around the bottle, and how good they’d look wrapped around his cock instead.

The pizza arrives in the first intermission, somehow perfectly timed so that Jonny misses none of the actual game. Patrick’s still squashed into one corner of the couch, determined to stay as far away from Jonny as he can, but after Jonny hands him one of the pizza boxes he sits on the floor at Patrick’s feet, his arm pressed hot against Patrick’s leg.

He knows that Jonny has no concept of personal space, but this is ridiculous even for him. It’s pushing the boundaries of normal hockey bro behavior, because it’s just the two of them and Jonny has an entire couch—or floor—at his disposal.

Patrick finishes the entire pizza without tasting a single bite. All he can focus on is the warmth spreading through his body and how fucking amazing it feels to have Jonny touching him. It’s warm and comfortable and _familiar_ , and Patrick melts into it.

The spell is broken when Jonny says something, and Patrick has to ask him to repeat the question.

“I’m getting a smoothie, do you want anything?”

Jonny’s looking at him like—like he’s an idiot, which isn’t really far off how Patrick feels right now.

“I’m good,” he says after a second, and as Jonny pads out of the room Patrick can’t help but be captivated by the curve of his ass and the way his basketball shorts cling to it in all the right ways. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if Patrick hadn’t seen Jonny’s naked ass a million times. He hadn’t been looking then but the images are still seared into his brain, and they now come with one hundred percent more pornographic ideas.

Because he wants to push Jonny down onto the bed, spread his cheeks before he presses kisses into the crease of his ass, all the way to his balls and back again. He wants to lick broad stripes over Jonny’s hole, perfect and pink and so fucking _needy_ , and make Jonny squirm until he’s begging for more.

Patrick can feel his face heating at the thoughts that are assaulting him. His dick’s no better, definitely interested in all of the above, and he helplessly thinks that this cannot be his life now. 

And then Jonny’s hovering in the doorway, looking stupidly attractive even though his hair’s a mess and he’s wearing nothing nicer than an old STRENGTH t-shirt, and before he can say a word Patrick knows he has to make his escape.

“Bathroom,” he says, and trips over his own feet as he stands. Jonny’s looking at him with a mixture of concern and confusion but Patrick ignores it as he pushes past him. He can’t look at Jonny right now because he’s so close to doing something stupid. Like pinning him against the doorframe and kissing him.

It’s instinct that leads him to the bathroom, and after he locks the door he sits on the toilet seat and buries his head in his hands, desperately trying to think about anything but how much he wants to bang his captain. He isn’t sure how long he’s in there for before there’s a knock. It doesn’t surprise him—this is _Jonny_ —and he splashes some water on his face before he unlocks the door.

“Sick,” he says before Jonny can get a word in. “I think—maybe I should go home.”

The look on Jonny’s face tells him that he isn’t going anywhere, and Patrick lets himself lean into the warmth of Jonny’s hand as he presses it against Patrick’s forehead.

“You’re flushed, but you’re not running a temperature,” Jonny says. “Probably the pizza. Go lie down, I’ll—”

“Jonny,” Patrick interrupts. “You shouldn’t—if you get sick too, that’s—”

“Patrick,” Jonny says, and that’s his Captain voice. Which is cheating, because Patrick’s been conditioned to listen to that. “You’re not—either you can go get back on the couch, or you can go to bed. I’m not letting you go home if you’re sick.”

Jonny’s brought the crazy eyes to the conversation now, but they don’t hide the lingering concern, and it doesn’t take Patrick long to nod in an agreement to stay. Jonny wraps an arm around his shoulders as they walk back to the couch and Patrick tries not to let himself lean into Jonny’s warmth.

A blanket appears from behind the couch and Patrick buries himself in it as best he can while Jonny disappears. It smells of _Jonny_ , of comfort and home, and he feels the guilt twisting his stomach because Jonny’s being so fucking _nice_ and he’s not sick at all. Unless you could lovesick, which—

Which is definitely a train of thought Patrick does not want to continue.

Jonny comes back with a half empty bottle of Coke and box of saltine crackers and hands them both to Patrick.

“I can’t make your mom’s soup at short notice,” Jonny explains, which _what the fuck_. Jonny has never had his mom’s soup recipe before. “These should help a little.”

“Thanks,” Patrick says weakly, and takes a sip of the Coke. It’s warm and flat and kind of gross, but the tiny pleased smile that Jonny’s wearing is enough to make him forget all of that.

\--

There aren’t many things Patrick loves as much as waking up feeling like he’s had his full eight hours of sleep. It’s definitely not something he’s felt recently but this morning, surrounded by the familiar scent of _Jonny_ , he feels like he could conquer the world.

It’s then that his brain shifts into gear and he realizes that he’s surrounded by Jonny’s scent because he’s _literally_ surrounded by Jonny. There’s a vague memory of climbing into a bed last night, but he’d been half asleep as he’d stumbled towards what he’d thought was the nearest flat surface. And there’s no reason for Jonny to be in bed with him unless he’d climbed into _Jonny’s_ bed and Jonny had been too nice to kick him out.

Which, he realizes, is probably exactly what happened. 

The first time they’d shared a bed, Jonny had apologized in that polite, Canadian way of his and Patrick had shrugged because it’s not like Jonny can control that he aggressively cuddles in his sleep. And his morning is no different than any other time they’ve woken up together. 

Jonny’s pressed tight against his back, his mouth hot against Patrick’s neck, his arm heavy where it’s draped over Patrick’s waist. But the thing Patrick’s most aware of is Jonny’s morning wood that’s nestled into the crease of his ass. It would be so easy to roll his hips and push back into Jonny’s body, to take what he wants more than _anything_.

His dick’s into that—not a fucking surprise, because everything Jonny’s done recently turns him on—and Patrick counts to five before he untangles himself from Jonny’s embrace. He takes a second to perch on the edge of the bed and just _look_ , because he isn’t sure he’ll ever get another chance like this. Jonny’s an expanse of tanned skin that Patrick wants to put his hands all over, and he allows himself to run his fingertips over Jonny’s jaw. His heart lurches as Jonny nuzzles into the palm of his hand and it takes every ounce of strength to tear his hand away.

It’s not the first time he’s woken up with Jonny curled around him, but it’s the first time that Patrick’s ever thought about staying wrapped in his arms. It’s strange to realize that he _likes_ being the little spoon, but even Patrick can’t deny how perfectly his body fits alongside Jonny’s.

Like when they’d gone to the Mumford & Sons concert and he’d just curled into Jonny like it was nothing, and Jonny had just looked at him like Patrick belonged tucked under his arm.

And that—that was almost two and a half years ago. Patrick’s pretty sure he would have remembered if he’d been having a gay crisis when they won their third cup. But that memory fits alongside the way he woke up this morning, and it’s jarring to realize that maybe he’d buried his feelings so far down that even he couldn’t figure them out.

He makes a pit stop in the bathroom before he heads to the kitchen. He doesn’t have to engage his brain as he roots through Jonny’s cupboards, grabbing everything he needs to make a bowl of cereal before he takes a seat at the counter. He’s halfway through the bowl before it occurs to him that this is real milk, not the soy shit that Jonny drinks, and that’s—that’s _weird_.

Then again, Jonny doesn’t really eat cereal either and he has at least five different boxes in his cupboard.

Patrick tries not to read anything more into it than Jonny being a good host, and he finishes his cereal without sparing another thought as to why Jonny has actual milk.

He’s washing his bowl in the sink when Jonny stumbles from the direction of his bedroom. His hair’s sticking up in a million different directions and he’s blearily rubbing his eyes as he throws Patrick what is clearly meant to be a _good morning_ smile. It’s easy to grin right back when Jonny looks soft and sleep rumpled.

He isn’t expecting Jonny to come up right behind him and lean over him to switch the coffee machine on. Patrick almost drops his bowl into the sink as Jonny curls a hand around his hip, his warmth seeping through Patrick’s t-shirt, his body heavy against Patrick’s. Patrick has to remind himself that Jonny is half asleep, and that Jonny in the morning rarely means anything he says or does.

That probably includes using Patrick as his own personal leaning post, and when Jonny dips his forehead to rest it on Patrick’s shoulder, Patrick has to remind himself that he can’t just spin around and press their mouths together. He’d like Jonny to pin him to the counter for the next ten minutes and allow him to lose himself to the slide of Jonny’s lips against his own, but he knows it isn’t going to happen no matter how much of a zombie Jonny currently is.

“Gonna shower,” Patrick says. Jonny makes a sleepy, wordless noise from behind him, but he shuffles to Patrick’s left. It puts a little space between them, and Patrick uses the moment to escape.

The shower in Jonny’s bathroom is _huge_ —easily big enough for two—and Patrick stands under the spray until his fingers start to wrinkle, letting the water cascade over him in an effort to wash his troubles away. It doesn’t work, not even close, and he surveys the shelf of bottles for a shampoo that isn’t going to turn his hair into an afro.

He stops when he reaches the organic thickening shampoo. It’s Jonny’s, that much he knows, but—

 _I’m pretty sure this doesn’t work, Taze_ , he’d said as he’d ran his hand over the ever thinning spot at the crown of Jonny’s head. Jonny had just laughed and told Patrick _not sure you should be talking about thinning hair, Peeks_ before he’d pressed Patrick against the tiles and kissed him, smiling the whole time.

And that—that’s a _memory_. Of him and Jonny. Kissing. In this shower.

“Holy shit,” Patrick says, because _what_.

He’s shaking as he turns the shower off. He grabs a towel and slings it around his shoulders, but it doesn’t stop the trail of wet footprints following his path to the sink counter. There’s two toothbrushes in the holder by the sink, the product that Patrick doesn’t want to admit he uses on his hair, the acne cream that he’d been prescribed at nineteen and had never wanted to give up.

One morning, he’d sat on that same counter and kissed Jonny awake, hooked his legs around Jonny’s waist until Jonny had dragged him back to bed with absolutely zero subtlety.

Jonny’s bedroom—or maybe _their_ bedroom—is just as revealing. Patrick clearly has a side of the bed, his clutter tucked away in the nightstand, but it’s unmistakably _his_. There’s a book in the top drawer, one that features a half-naked vampire chick on the front cover, and Patrick doesn’t remember reading it but he knows it’s not Jonny’s. Jonny’s books are either pretentious or in French or Dan Brown levels of mundane, not the kind of thing you’d pick up in a 99c store. Next to the book is a set of headphones he’d thought he’d lost, an old prescription bottle with his name on it that’s still half full, a watch that he doesn’t remember buying but that isn’t something Jonny would wear.

He picks it up and turns it over; there’s an engraving on the back. It reads, _you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take_ and it hits him that Jonny had given him the watch, his fingers trailing over Patrick’s pulse as Jonny had fastened it around his wrist.

The other nightstand obviously belongs to Jonny: there’s stuff _everywhere_ , spilling over the top of the table and onto the floor. There’s the same brand of lube that Patrick had found in the nightstand at his condo, the one that smells faintly of blueberries. Most of the rest of the drawer is junk, but Patrick takes a second to appreciate the pair of eyeglasses that he finds tucked in the back corner. Eyeglasses are prime chirping material, especially when Jonny’s probably needed them for _years_.

There’s a rattle as Patrick closes the drawer, and it only takes him a couple of seconds to realise that he’s probably knocked one of the prescription bottles onto the floor. Jonny’s got a whole host of them scattered across the top of the nightstand, but this one is for something that Patrick recognizes as sleeping medication. It’s dated a week after Patrick lost his memory, and Patrick feels the too familiar twist of guilt in his gut. He’s seen the dark circles under Jonny’s eyes, the ones that he knows mean that Jonny hasn’t been sleeping, but he’s never thought it would have to do with _him_. Until now, anyway.

Because the more he finds, the more it becomes obvious what Jonny has spent the last five weeks hiding from him.

And Patrick—Patrick doesn’t really know what to do with that. Because whatever him and Jonny _were_ , they certainly aren’t it now.

He knows he should probably go and talk to Jonny. Maybe yell at him before he channels all of his frustration into kissing Jonny instead.

He feels the too familiar hitch to his breathing before his knees give out, and he manages to stagger the two steps to the bed as he hears Jonny’s all too familiar voice in his head.

_Slow down, Patrick. Just push everything else away, and take a deep breath. Slowly._

Patrick does.


	8. Chapter 8

Patrick isn’t sure how long it takes to get his breathing under control, but it’s not long enough that Jonny comes looking for him. He feels stupid; he can’t believe he missed the giant neon signs that have been in front of him for weeks. Signs like Jonny sleeping in his room at the hospital, the dates that Jonny took him on, Jonny being weird, which okay, _that_ isn’t anything new, but it still counts. Fuck, Patrick had flown to fucking Winnipeg in the off season, something he’d never done in his ten years of knowing the douchebag.

And Jonny—Jonny didn’t tell him any of this. Patrick understands that maybe Jonny hadn’t wanted to tell him about being sober, although he suspects that was more the influence of his parents. But the only reason not to tell someone you’re in a relationship with them is because you don’t want them anymore.

There’s a sharp, twisty feeling in his stomach at the thought that Jonny might not love him enough to want to do this with him now. But it doesn’t add up with the rest of the clues: Jonny treated him like a boyfriend even when he wasn’t one, and the sleeping pills on his nightstand are something that Jonny only turns to when he’s desperate.

He knows he should walk into the kitchen and tell Jonny that he knows they were— _something_. Together, definitely, and dating, probably, but there isn’t a label that seems to fit with everything he remembers about their relationship.

But he’s still mad at Jonny. Jonny’s kept this a secret from him for _weeks_ , in the same way he kept Patrick’s sobriety from him. Patrick thought that after that, Jonny would want to be honest with him. Apparently that wasn’t the case.

And Patrick wants to know _why_. Because if Jonny still wants this as much as Patrick does, he doesn’t want to waste another second.

Jonny’s walk in closet is ridiculous, just like everything else in his condo, and it doesn’t take him long to find his closes mingled with Jonny’s. He grabs the first t-shirt he finds that looks like it might fit him and a pair of shorts that are definitely Jonny’s. They hang loose on his hips, and he tugs at them as he rounds the corner into the kitchen.

The second he sees Jonny, he feels the anger bubbling inside of him, and he tries to push it down. It doesn’t work, not when Jonny’s looking stupidly hot making a smoothie, and Patrick can’t work out if he wants to to punch Jonny or kiss him or yell at him, or maybe do all three things at the same time.

And then the whirring sound of the blender leaves the room in silence, and Patrick blurts out, “We were together.”

Jonny’s eyes go wide and his jaw slackens. The smoothie jug he’s holding clatters to the floor, green goop spilling across the tiles, but Jonny’s gaze is fixed on Patrick, like he can’t believe what he’s hearing. Like he can’t believe that Patrick worked it out.

But there’s guilt written all over his face, and it just makes Patrick angrier.

“Patrick—” Jonny starts, but Patrick doesn’t want to hear it, not with his fucking _name_ when Jonny hasn’t called him that since they were kids. It hits him then, the way Jonny said _Kaner_ the first time Patrick sucked Jonny’s cock and then Patrick had laughed, but not unkindly. He told Jonny that no one but girls who were only interested in Patrick Kane, NHL star ever called him that in bed. He told Jonny to call him Patrick, and he heard it over and over as he gave a blow job that was sloppy at best. But Jonny looked at him like he was the Stanley Cup, like Patrick was everything he’d worked his whole life for.

Like _Patrick_ was the best thing he'd ever had in his bed. But it’s not enough to stop Patrick’s anger spilling out.

“You didn’t _tell_ me,” Patrick says, his hands curling into fists at his side. “Five fucking weeks and you didn’t say a fucking word. You—you just assumed I wouldn’t want to hear it. That I’d want to go back to getting drunk and sleeping around, instead of— _this_. Just another fuck up to add to the list, this fucking dumb shit who lost two years of his life and—”

“Patrick,” Jonny says again, his face twisting into the same expression Patrick saw that first day at the hospital, like Jonny’s in _pain_ , and Patrick feels it in his gut. He bites down on his lip, his teeth digging into the flesh so hard he can taste blood, and waits for Jonny to continue.

“What?” he asks after the silence stretches between them for too long.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t—you—” Jonny starts, and Patrick’s about to tell him that he can go shove his apology up his fucking ass, but he waits a second too long and Jonny’s talking again. “Peeks, I—I can explain.”

Patrick can’t say no to that, not when Jonny looks broken and lost. He nods slowly, and he feels his anger dissipate as the relief creeps across Jonny’s face.

It takes Jonny a split second to turn towards the couch, and Patrick can do nothing more than follow him. He feels as though he’s about to skate onto the ice before game seven of a playoff series. He can feel the adrenaline running through his veins, the way his stomach clenches nervously as he curls into one of the corners of the couch, his feet tucked beneath him.

Jonny’s procured a hoodie from somewhere and when he settles in the other corner, Patrick can’t shake the heavy weight in his stomach. He’s known Jonny for long enough to know that Jonny doesn’t care if he walks around naked, if he has all of his serious life conversations when he’s wearing nothing more than a pair of his stupid boxer-briefs. He knows that Jonny only gets puts on clothing when he has to, or when he wants to shield himself from the world.

And right now, apparently he wants to shield himself from _Patrick_ , and that—that _hurts_.

Jonny stretches his legs out towards Patrick, and once he’s settled Patrick says, “Talk, Toews.” Jonny looks uncomfortable, but this is _Jonny_ ; touch is the only emotional language that he knows. He’s never been one for talking about any kinds of feelings that weren’t related to the ice.

It doesn’t surprise him that there’s a pause while Jonny collects his thoughts, and after a few false starts of Jonny opening his mouth and nothing coming out, he eventually asks Patrick a question.

“If I’d told you, when you woke up in the hospital, what would you have said?”

Patrick wants to say that he’d have believed Jonny, that he’d have _known_ , but he’d told Kayleigh that he wasn’t gay when she’d correctly assumed Jonny was his boyfriend—he’d fucking _laughed_ at the idea and then texted Jonny in disbelief. So maybe he wouldn’t have been as accepting as he wants to be right now—as he _is_ right now—and he feels the fight drain out of him as he realizes that Jonny was probably trying to stop himself from getting hurt too.

And whatever conversation Jonny had with his parents about wanting him to have the same life as in 2015, he’s sure that weighed on the back of Jonny’s mind when he’d made his decision.

“I’d have probably asked you where Sharpy was hiding the video camera,” he finally admits, and he watches the twist of Jonny’s mouth uncurl. It definitely sounds like something Sharpy would have pulled on them when they were young and impressionable. And maybe something he’d still try even now.

“I couldn’t tell you, Peeks,” Jonny says. Patrick can hear the hurt in his voice and has to resist the urge to climb over Jonny and pull him into a hug. “And when you found out what I told the hospital, I thought I’d made the right call.”

“Jon—”

“Because you hating me for this—that was never an option. You’re—you’re too important to me.”

The confession hits him hard; Jonny’s not the touchy-feely type with his words, and Patrick can’t even bear to look at him for fear of what he might find written on his face. Instead he stretches his leg out so his foot is brushing the inside of Jonny’s knee in what he hopes conveys the fact that it’s okay. That Patrick understands why Jonny did it, even if he might not like it.

“How did we—” Patrick asks, and there’s a second when it looks like Jonny’s going to say no before he starts talking.

“We were in St. Louis on New Year’s Eve,” Jonny begins, “and none of us wanted to risk getting recognized in one of the bars. So we bought a bunch of booze and holed up in a room at the hotel. One of the rookies ended up daring ‘the old marrieds’ to kiss at midnight since no one else had anyone to kiss and—”

“And Jonathan Toews doesn’t back down from dares,” Patrick says with a smile. Jonny looks a little sheepish at that, but Patrick’s known him for long enough that he knows it’s one hundred percent true.

“I asked you before I said yes!” Jonny exclaims, like he can’t believe Patrick would think that Jonny would do kiss him without his permission. “So we kissed. And god, it was like being back at Shattuck and playing truth or dare. But after practice the next day you followed me back to my room and told me that you hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it, and we ended up hooking up. And fuck, Peeks, it was—it was so fucking good, and then it—it kept happening. And then—then it became more than just hooking up.”

Patrick’s no stranger to _what happens on the road, stays on the road_ , but it had always been one girl in one city, and no repeats, the same thing he’d agreed with all of his past girlfriends. There’s a pang of guilt he pushes away at the thought of repeatedly hooking up with Jonny of all people, because Jonny’s probably the most annoying person that Patrick’s ever met, pushes him in ways that Patrick doesn’t even know he wants to be pushed.

But he knows they’re long past hooking up now. He wonders when it changed from casual sex between friends—although Patrick’s not sure that anything with Jonny could ever be casual—to whatever they were. _Together_ , he realizes, like they always have been. Like they always will be.

And Patrick has so many questions; he’s more willing to entertain the idea that he might not be completely straight than he ever was in 2015, but Jonny’s not exactly an open book. And no one else has said a word to him about their relationship in five fucking weeks, and that—that’s _weird_.

“Why didn’t anyone else tell me we were together?” Patrick asks before he can stop himself, but Jonny’s face crumples in on itself at the question, and it’s apparent that he’s hit a nerve. Jonny’s eyes drop to where he’s pulling at a seam on the sleeve of his hoodie, a loose thread twisting between his fingers as he speaks.

“No one else knows. About—” and he gestures between them in what Patrick takes to mean their relationship. “Except David. You were pretty insistent on keeping it just between us. And, uh, I respected that.”

Patrick doesn’t need three guesses to figure out why he wanted him and Jonny to remain on the down low, and the first two don’t count because they’re not Catholic guilt. Maybe Jonny thought about their career, the fact that they’re the faces of an original six franchise—although from his reaction that seems unlikely—but Patrick knows his reasoning had more to do with his family than anything else.

Right now, it seems like the stupidest reason in the world. Maybe his parents wouldn’t have been okay with it—maybe they’d have told Jonny not to tell him, like they did with his sobriety—but Jess, at least, would have been supportive. And he wouldn’t have been trying to figure out what he suspects is the second gay crisis of his life on his own.

“But you told David?” Patrick asks, and Jonny shakes his head.

“My mouth on your dick told David,” Jonny says, wrinkling his nose in disgust. “It was more than I ever wanted my brother to know about my sex life.”

Patrick can’t hide his laugh at that. Even though he’s sure it must have been mortifying at the time, it somehow feels so very _them_ , so wrapped up in each other that they didn’t notice David until it was too late.

“You text him a lot,” Jonny continues, “or you did. I, uh, kind of went through your phone and deleted a bunch of stuff though, so, sorry. You—you complain about me, mostly.”

“He _is_ the better Toews,” Patrick agrees, even though they will definitely be coming back to Jonny deleting shit out of his phone. He understands Jonny was just doing it to protect himself, maybe protect both of them, but Patrick is very much not okay with it. But Jonny telling him that his parents wanted him to live his life _now_ echoes in his head, and Patrick’s not really okay with that either.

Jonny kicks him in the knee for the chirp, but Patrick can tell he’s not mad, his dumb lopsided grin sitting on his face for the world to read.

“I don’t know why I love you sometimes,” Jonny says, and then he freezes, like he’s said something he shouldn’t. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t—”

“It’s fine, Jonny,” Patrick says, and he can’t stop the smile from spreading across his face, the warmth spreading through his chest at the words. “I—I kept dreaming about us. I thought I was going crazy at first, or that maybe the hit made me gay. I, uh, googled it. To see if that was a thing.”

Jonny laughs at that, loud and bright, his eyes crinkling like they do when he’s really happy.

“Nah,” Jonny says, his expression softening out into fondness. “You were kind of gay long before that.”

“Takes one to know one,” Patrick chirps back, but it’s weak and dumb, and something that Jonny would say. Jonny shrugs, still smiling softly, the hard lines that Patrick had seen earlier smoothed away. He looks younger, like the weight of his secret has been lifted off his shoulders, and Patrick realizes it’s been too long since he’s seen him like this.

“You know I’m not going to ask you to fuck me just because we were fucking before, right? I wouldn’t—it wouldn’t be fair.”

Patrick can feel himself flush at Jonny’s words. It’s ridiculous; he knows they’ve fucked, and if his brain can be trusted, they’ve fucked a _lot_ because he’s pretty sure all the the dreams he had of Jonny are actually memories. And Jonny—Jonny’s an _idiot_ because he clearly can’t see what’s right in front of him.

Although Patrick’s pretty sure he has most of the market cornered on that.

He doesn’t speak as he moves across the couch, sliding across the cushions until he climbs into Jonny’s lap. Jonny’s got that dumb look on his face again, like he can’t believe what’s happening, but he reaches out to Patrick’s wrist, traces over the veins with his thumb. His eyes are dark, almost all pupil, and wholly focused on Patrick. Patrick’s been the recipient of the Tazer stare before, but never like this, not when Jonny looks like he has everything that he ever wanted sitting in his lap.

“Peeks—” Jonny starts, and Patrick can hear the rest of that sentence before Jonny says it— _you don’t have to, it’s okay_ —so Patrick cups his jaw carefully, his hand shaking a little, and brings their lips together.

Kissing Jonny is like nothing he ever imagined; it’s not even like the memories he has of Jonny, greedy and possessive. This is Jonny letting Patrick control the kiss, giving him the space he thinks he needs, except Patrick’s not sure he could ever stop kissing Jonny after this, his mouth hot and wet as Patrick licks into it, his day old stubble scraping across Patrick’s jaw. But there’s too much space between them; Patrick’s sitting on Jonny’s thighs, but otherwise only their mouths are touching, and he wants _more_.

“I know you can do better than that,” Patrick says when he pulls away. It’s meant to be teasing but it ends up nowhere close. He sees the second when Jonny gets it; one of Jonny’s hands curls around Patrick’s hip, his thumb digging into his hipbone as he pulls Patrick closer until he can feel Jonny’s cock pressing against his ass. They fucked like this once, he realizes, and Jonny had told him it was the best use for _this fucking awful chair_ in Patrick’s condo, Jonny’s cheeks the same red as the velvet, his face pressed into Patrick’s neck.

“Patrick?” Jonny asks questioningly, loosening his grip on Patrick’s hip. Patrick curls his fingers over Jonny’s in reassurance, trying to tell Jonny without words that he’s not going anywhere, and presses a kiss to the corner of Jonny’s mouth, pulling at his lip with his thumb.

“Shut up and kiss me, fuckface,” he says, and Jonny huffs out a laugh.

“You’re the worst,” Jonny says, but Patrick hears _I love you_ , and Jonny drags him in for a kiss. Jonny cups the back of Patrick’s neck, his fingers rubbing circles into the skin at the top of his spine, and Patrick melts into the touch.

It’s _nothing_ like their kiss a few minutes ago. Jonny kisses like he captains; he’s always been a leader and it doesn’t shock Patrick to know he kisses like one. He’s rough, rougher than Patrick’s ever been with a girl, but he finds that he likes it. He likes that Jonny doesn’t treat him like he’s delicate and breakable, and Patrick can’t hold back his moan as Jonny slips his tongue into his mouth. There’s no denying that Jonny still wants him; Patrick was clearly stupid to think otherwise, because Jonny’s kissing him like he’s drowning and Patrick’s the only thing keeping him alive.

His lungs are burning by the time Jonny pulls away and presses his forehead to Patrick’s. They’re breathing like they’ve been double shifting all night, taking in gulps of air as fast as they can, and Patrick isn’t sure if his lightheadedness is from lack of oxygen or from Jonny himself.

“Peeks,” Jonny says softly, pressing their mouths together softly as he cups Patrick’s jaw in his hand. He runs his thumb over Patrick’s cheekbone as he peppers kisses across Patrick’s mouth, his chin, his jaw, until he curls his fingers into Patrick’s short hair. “Tell me if you want to stop, yeah?”

Jonny’s clearly an idiot, and Patrick can’t help but roll his eyes to show Jonny exactly how much of an idiot he’s being. He’s never been kissed like this, not even close, and he doesn’t ever want to _stop_. Even having to leave the couch might become an issue because he wants to keep Jonny’s mouth on his own forever.

Patrick kisses the scar on Jonny’s chin that he remembers putting there, and then says, “When have I ever done anything I didn’t want to?”

Jonny snorts unattractively at that and then he bites down softly on Patrick’s lower lip and _fuck_ , they should have done this years ago. And Patrick’s not just talking about the last ten months they _have_ been doing this. He’s thinking more like rookie year.

“Jon,” he gasps out as Jonny bites across his jaw, pausing to suck at a patch of skin just below his jawbone which makes him moan. Jonny continues down Patrick’s neck, scraping his teeth over sensitive skin before tugging at the neck of Patrick’s t-shirt so he can press bruising kisses into Patrick’s collarbone. Patrick’s sure he’s making some kind of stupid sound—the _ah ah ah_ filling the room is probably coming from his mouth, but he can’t bring himself to care, not when Jonny’s using his body in ways that Patrick never knew he wanted.

Jonny’s shifting beneath him, pulling Patrick’s legs further apart with his knees before he flips them; it’s a move that Patrick’s only ever seen in porn, and he hides his smirk as he pulls Jonny into another kiss. It’s a bruising tangle of teeth and tongue, nowhere near perfect, but in this moment Patrick couldn’t want anything more.

It’s easy to work his hand into Jonny’s boxer briefs, where the smooth muscle of Jonny’s back gives way to what Patrick’s free to admit is a really fucking perfect ass, and squeeze gently. A choked moan is his reward, and he does it again, spreading his legs further apart until he can grind his cock into Jonny’s hip. Jonny’s touch is electric and _everywhere_ , and he feels like he’s a teenager again, horny and needy and grinding against someone else through layers of clothing because he didn’t want to push any further.

Except Jonny’s his to touch now. And Patrick wants to touch, wants to relearn Jonny’s body in the same way that Jonny obviously knows his.

He breaks the kiss but doesn’t move his mouth from Jonny’s, murmuring _off_ against his lips as he tugs on the bottom of Jonny’s hoodie. Jonny’s eyes darken, the amber flecks disappearing almost entirely, and Patrick sucks in a breath because shit, that’s _hot_. In one swift motion Jonny discards his hoodie over the back of the couch, and Patrick’s mesmerized by the shift and bunch of his muscles. Seeing Jonny shirtless is nothing new, but this is different. Patrick’s allowed to look, allowed to touch, and Jonny’s tanned and built and _beautiful_ , and Patrick has no fucking clue how he missed this for ten years.

“Jonny, I want—”

“Anything,” Jonny says, giving him one of the most idiotic smiles Patrick’s ever seen—and he’s seen a lot of them from Jonny—and Patrick can’t resist kissing it off his face. It’s strange at first, feeling Jonny smile rather than see it, but he likes it, likes knowing that Jonny wants this just as much as he does. Maybe more, because Jonny’s been holding back from him for five weeks, and the thought hits him straight in the gut.

He’s been shitty to Jonny—unintentionally, but still shitty—and yet Jonny still wants him.

“I—” and he isn’t sure how that sentence is going to end, other than maybe _I’m sorry_ , but Jonny cuts him off with a kiss.

“You can have anything, Peeks,” Jonny says softly. He’s looking at Patrick with what can only be described as love, and Patrick feels his heart lurch as he presses their lips back together.

It’s easy to lose himself in Jonny’s body. The cut of his abs, the muscles trembling beneath his skin as Patrick brushes his fingers across them and traces the sharp lines. The hiss he lets out as Patrick catches a dark, pebbled nipple with the edge of his thumb nail, and the gasp he breathes into Patrick’s mouth as Patrick rubs the pad of his thumb over it in apology. The way he’s unapologetically hard, pressing into Patrick’s thigh insistently with every roll of his hips, grinding against Patrick like he’s Jonny’s to use however he wants.

Patrick is very much okay with that. He likes being pinned down, how Jonny’s weight on top of him is firm and reassuring. How Jonny doesn’t press him for anything, how Patrick’s allowed to touch and taste at his own pace without Jonny ever wanting anything except Patrick in return. How Jonny will pull away just a little to look at Patrick before he kisses him again, how the flush staining his cheeks creeps down his neck, and Patrick wants to see how far it will spread across his chest.

He’s captivated by the redness until Jonny slides a hand across his stomach, roughly pushing Patrick’s t-shirt up as much as he can. It’s obviously not enough because Jonny ducks his head and mouths at his nipple through his t-shirt, the worn cotton still rough against his skin, Jonny’s mouth hot and damp and fuck, Patrick didn’t know this was a thing that he liked.

He tangles his hand in Jonny’s hair, letting him know wordlessly that he should definitely do that again. Jonny does, pushing at his t-shirt more until Patrick arches his back and the material slips off easily and then Jonny’s tongue is tracing the peak of his nipple before he sucks it gently into his mouth.

“God,” Patrick says, and then whines when Jonny takes his mouth away because that is _not cool_.

“Jonny’s just fine, thanks,” Jonny says with that smile that means Jonny thinks he’s being hilarious. Patrick can’t help but roll his eyes.

“Stop making jokes,” he whines. Jonny gives him one of his most condescending looks before he licks a broad stripe over his nipple, and this time Patrick gasps, choking on Jonny’s name. He watches Jonny lick and suck a path down his chest, fucking Patrick’s bellybutton with his tongue before he mouths across the fabric of Patrick's shorts and oh, _oh_. Jonny’s mouth is hot even through the nylon and Patrick feels his eyes flutter shut as Jonny presses a kiss to the tip of his cock.

“Peeks?” Jonny says questioningly, and Patrick’s about to snap at him, ask him whether or not it looks like he wants to stop, except when he opens his eyes he realizes that’s not what Jonny’s asking him. Jonny’s asking him what he wants. Ten seconds ago he would have said Jonny’s mouth on his cock no questions asked, but he can’t help but be transfixed by the way Jonny’s palming his own cock through his shorts, and his mind blanks for a second because _that is never is not going to fit in his ass_.

It’s not like he’s never seen Jonny hard before, but he’s never actively looked; when they were roommates Patrick had jerked off in the shower like a normal person but Jonny had claimed that it was too wet. Patrick had come back early from a bar more than once to find Jonny jerking off, naked and spread eagled across the bed. Patrick had always turned right back around and given Jonny the twenty minutes that he’d needed to be curled under the duvet like nothing had ever happened.

Now he can see exactly how thick Jonny’s cock is, the outline unmistakable through the thin fabric of his boxer briefs. He can see the damp patch from Jonny’s pre-come on the cotton, the flare of the head, the way Jonny’s eyes flutter shut as he presses a thumb in a certain spot. And he wants that to be his hand on Jonny’s cock, making him gasp and moan and tell Patrick exactly what a good job he’s doing.

Because he knows that Jonny does _all_ of those things, and it makes his stomach curl in the best way.

“Jon,” Patrick says softly, and he watches Jonny’s eyes flick to his own before Patrick kisses him again. It’s easy to slide his hands down Jonny’s body until they rest on his hips, and he pushes Jonny’s briefs down until the waistband slides over his ass and thighs. When Jonny pulls them off completely Patrick can’t drag his eyes away from Jonny’s cock, hard and heavy, and he wraps his hand around it.

“Wait,” Jonny says, batting Patrick’s hand away, and Patrick swallows nervously as Jonny reaches over him and slides his hand between the cushions of the couch. It doesn’t take long before he produces a tiny bottle of lube, and Patrick can’t hold back a laugh. Jonny can be such a boy scout sometimes, but when Patrick says that, Jonny just grins.

“You put it there,” he says simply, and Patrick can see the honesty on his face. He _knows_ Jonny’s telling the truth. They’ve probably fucked on this couch before, curled up together to watch a movie and gotten distracted, and it doesn’t surprise Patrick in the slightest. Not when he wants to plaster himself against Jonny’s body and never move again.

“Guess we better put it to good use, eh?” Patrick says, and then cringes. Jonny laughs a little, a smirk curling at the edges of his lips, but he doesn’t say anything and Patrick figures that the best way to avoid the inevitable chirp is to kiss the smirk off Jonny’s face.

It doesn’t take more than a few seconds before Jonny’s hands are pushing roughly at Patrick’s shorts but it takes Patrick an embarrassingly long time to get with the program. He arches his back for Jonny and Patrick’s shorts slip over his hips easily, and then Jonny’s hand is on his cock and—

“Hey,” Jonny murmurs against his lips, and Patrick opens his eyes as Jonny presses featherlight kisses across his cheekbones, to the tip of his nose, the arch of his brow. “You doing okay?”

“It’s just a lot,” Patrick says in a rush, because he can’t have Jonny thinking he doesn’t want this when he wants it more than _anything_. “Jonny, _please_ , I need—”

“I got you,” Jonny says, and Patrick thinks _yeah, you do_ as Jonny wraps a lube sticky hand around both of their cocks, and Patrick can’t help but moan. This is what he’s wanted for _weeks_ and it’s just as good as he remembers, Jonny jerking him off slow and tight, just the way he likes. It feels a thousand times better with Jonny’s cock pressed against his own, Jonny’s clever fingers taking him apart in ways that no one else has ever been able to.

It’s somehow a surprise when his orgasm hits; it’s fast and hard and he’s spilling over Jonny’s fingers without any warning at all. Patrick buries his face in Jonny’s neck as Jonny works him through it, shaking with every twist of Jonny’s hand until it’s too much and he’s begging Jonny to stop. Jonny does, and it takes Patrick a second to catch his breath, and a few more to bring the world back into focus.

Jonny’s still hard—Patrick thinks bitterly that he has to win at _everything_ , and apparently that includes orgasms— and Patrick snakes a hand between their bodies and places his fingers over Jonny’s. Jonny’s mouth falls open in surprise, like he wasn’t expecting Patrick to want to touch, but before he can say a word Patrick’s kissing the expression away. His mouth ghosts over Jonny’s with each roll of Jonny’s hips, catching kisses when he can and hearing Jonny’s breathy moans when he can’t. 

“Patrick,” Jonny says brokenly, and then he’s coming all over Patrick’s stomach, his hand, his spent dick, but Patrick can’t bring himself to care how gross he feels right now. Not when Jonny’s flushed and sweaty and _perfect_ and curling into Patrick’s side like he belongs there.

There’s no awkward conversation like with some of his exes; Jonny’s silent, seemingly happy to enjoy the moment without any of the words that his girlfriends had needed. Patrick’s glad because his brain still feels a little broken, and he isn’t sure he could even manage a reply to a yes or no question right now.

“I missed this,” Jonny murmurs against Patrick’s lips, his thumb pressing at the corner of Patrick’s mouth and Patrick has to hold back a sob that threatens to escape. Because Jonny loves him _so much_ , and he doesn’t know how he missed it for this long.

He doesn’t say _me too_ , even though part of Patrick _did_ miss this. Instead he softly presses their lips together, his fingers resting lightly on Jonny’s jaw. The lazy slide of Jonny’s mouth against his own is familiar and Patrick lets himself sink into the soft, wet heat until they’re less kissing and more sharing the same air. It should be gross but somehow it’s not, but it does feel like they’ve done it a million times before.

“I need another shower,” Patrick says after a while, but he doesn’t make any effort to move. Jonny’s weight is solid and reassuring at his side, their legs tangled together, and he’s not sure he ever wants to move again.

“Pretty sure we both do, Peeks,” Jonny says, dragging his fingers through the sticky mess on Patrick’s stomach. Patrick shivers at the touch, and then again as Jonny licks his fingers clean.

“Fucking weirdo,” Patrick says, but he pulls Jonny in for another kiss anyway, tasting the tang of _them_ on his tongue. It’s a little weird, more bitter than he was expecting, but it’s not _bad_. He’s pretty sure he could get used to it, especially if Jonny keeps smiling at him like he’s everything he’s ever wanted.

Patrick would be content to stay here a while longer, maybe drift back to sleep with Jonny’s weird loud breathing in his ear, but they have skate today and neither of them has really eaten yet. If they don’t move now, at some point Jonny’s captain mode will automatically engage, and Patrick would rather not have to deal with that when he’s still basking in the afterglow of the best hand job of his life.

So he just presses a kiss to the side of Jonny’s neck, letting his teeth scrape over the thick tendons there, and says, “Shower.”

\--

They’re late to practice—Jonny had kissed the back of his neck under the hot spray of the shower, run his hands all over Patrick’s chest until they’d ended up jerking each other off in there too, _and_ they’d had to stop to grab Patrick’s bags on the way—but Q gives them nothing more than a glare as they slip into the room.

He doesn’t really feel capable of engaging his brain for skate, and he’s lucky they’re not doing anything more than practicing their shootout moves. The only thing his mind is capable of focusing on is a beautiful HD version of Jonny, their morning together playing on repeat in his brain. It’s showing, too; he misses his first three attempts, the latter two feet wide of the goal, and he hits his stick against the goal post as he skates past.

“Get it together, Patrick,” he mutters under his breath as he joins the end of the line again, and he knows that Jonny is glaring at him without even looking in his direction.

“Okay, Kaner?” Breadman asks him as he bumps into Patrick from behind. “You play like—like Panther.”

Patrick thinks that Breadman’s trying to say that he couldn’t win a shootout to save his life right now, and he can’t hide the wry smile that graces his lips because it’s completely true.

“I’m fine, Bread,” he says, but he’s not sure how convincing it is when Breadman frowns.

“We make bet, okay?” Breadman says, and then barrels ahead without waiting for an answer. “I win shootout, we eat Russian place Sunday night. You win, we eat somewhere you like.”

“Best of five?” Patrick says, and Breadman nods. He’s going down. Patrick does _not_ like the Russian place. “You’re on, fucker.”

Unsurprisingly, it gets him to focus. He thinks that was the whole point, and from the way that Jonny’s watching the two of them in line, he’s not entirely sure it was Breadman’s idea. Four of his next five shots get past Crow’s glove, and the fifth is at least on target.

Breadman gets three, but he’s grinning anyway as he skates over to Patrick, knocking the puck away from his stick and skating away with it, laughing the whole time. It turns into a game of keepaway as practice winds down, the two of them chasing each other around the rink until they’re the only ones left on the ice.

They walk back to the locker room together, Breadman trying to persuade Patrick to go to the Russian place anyway, but when they step inside Patrick’s eyes immediately flick to Jonny. He’s talking to Q, his back to the door but he’s stripped to his Under Armor and Patrick’s eyes are drawn to the sweat soaked hair at the nape of his neck, the flex of the muscles he can see through the thin fabric. He _wants_ , and he’s never been so glad to be dressed in full gear as he stumbles towards his stall, dragging his eyes away from Jonny.

He hits the gym afterwards, pedaling as hard as he can for an hour until he’s dripping with sweat. His legs feel like jelly as he steps off the bike, toweling the dampness from his body as he heads back to the locker room. It’s empty, which isn’t surprising, but there’s a note from from Jonny in his stall, a hastily scribbled _gone 2 get smoothies, bbs_ on a yellow post it note, and Patrick slips it into his bag.

He texts Jonny when he’s done with the shower, and by the time he’s back in his regular clothes there’s a reply from Jonny letting him know he’s in the parking lot. He’s waiting for Patrick right outside the doors and Patrick slides into the car with a smile. His pink smoothie is sitting in the cup holder and he mumbles a thanks before he takes a sip.

“Don’t tell me if this has kale in it,” Patrick says. “I don’t want to spoil the illusion.”

Jonny laughs and shakes his head.

“No kale. Unless you want to try mine.”

He gestures to the sludge-colored smoothie that’s in the other cup holder, and Patrick doesn’t manage to hide a grimace.

“I’m good.”

Patrick watches Jonny fiddle with the radio, the furrow between his brows getting deeper with every station that he hates, and eventually settles for silence. 

“Seabs invited us to dinner tonight,” Jonny says eventually. “Dayna’s cooking. I think he said pot roast.”

“Rain check?” Patrick asks, because he isn’t sure that he’s in the mood to sit next to Jonny all night and not be able to touch him. That moment in the locker room had been bad enough. “I think I just want to go home. Not really in the mood for company tonight. Just Netflix and chill, you know?”

“Okay, Kaner,” Jonny says. Patrick can hear the sigh in his voice, which is stupid because everyone knows that’s a code to get laid. Right now that’s priority number one for Patrick, except he doesn’t know if he wants to fuck Jonny or if he wants to get fucked. It’s not as terrifying as it had been the first time; he knows Jonny won’t hurt him and he even _likes_ it, but there’s still the edge of shame when he thinks about willingly offering his ass to Jonny.

The first time it happened had been when they'd got kicked out of the playoffs; Jonny asked him if he was sure a million times before Patrick told him to just shut up and do it or else it was never going to happen. Jonny had taken his time to prep Patrick, to open him up so it didn't hurt and it had been _good_ , and yeah, okay, maybe Patrick can get behind Jonny taking him apart almost too slowly until he's begging to come.

Jonny types out something on his phone as they sit at a set of lights, but there’s a cacophony of horns when he takes too long, and Jonny drops his phone in frustration.

“Fuck,” he says softly, but Patrick’s thankful that he waits until the next set of lights to fish beneath the seat until he finds it.

He sips on his smoothie as they drive alongside the river, but when Jonny turns onto Wabash and pulls up outside Trump Tower, Patrick doesn’t understand.

“See you tomorrow,” Jonny says without even looking in his direction, thumbing angrily at his phone. Patrick blinks a couple of times without doing anything until it sinks in that he should probably be getting out of the car, and Jonny’s fleeing the scene seconds after Patrick’s grabbed his bag from the trunk.

He’s left standing on the sidewalk gaping at the back of the Tesla, because he has no fucking idea what just happened.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And 50k later, we're finally at the end. (Although, I have plenty of ideas in this 'verse, so it might not be the end. Just the end for now.) Thank you everyone who has left a comment, kudos, or even managed to get to the end. You are all awesome! :)

Patrick’s still reeling as he sinks into his couch. He doesn’t understand why he’s at his condo, _alone_ , instead of at Jonny’s condo with _Jonny_. Although he’d be fine with being at Trump Tower if Jonny was here.

He’d thought that Jonny had wanted him as much as he’d seen this morning, and it hurts to think that it might not be true. Except when Jonny had told Patrick that he loved him, there wasn’t a reason to think that Jonny was lying. It hadn’t seemed that way; Jonny hadn’t been able to keep the smile off his face as he kissed along the curve of Patrick’s shoulder, and he knows Jonny isn’t that good an actor.

Patrick can’t stop replaying the morning over and over in his head, and he’s only snapped out of his thoughts by his stomach growling. There’s a second where he considers ignoring it, but he _needs_ to eat. Except it turns out there’s nothing in his refrigerator that looks remotely appealing, and nothing on any of his take-out menus either.

After searching through the food app folder on his phone he settles on Chipotle; they’ve added a delivery feature since the last time he ordered from them, and he’s glad. He didn’t really want to brave walking past the Blackhawks store on Michigan. He isn’t really in the mood for anything except figuring out exactly what happened when Jonny drove him home.

It’s not like Patrick has a lot of options. He could talk to David, but as much as Jonny said that they talk, Patrick isn’t sure he’d know what to say. Especially not when he has no idea what happened.

But maybe he could talk to Jess, because she’d been supportive of his not-exactly-newfound feelings for Jonny, and he presses the call button next to her name before he can chicken out.

“Pat, I’m kind of busy, can—” Jess starts, but Patrick interrupts her.

“I slept with Jonny,” he says, except it comes out as one word. “And then I think—I fucked it up.”

“Wow,” Jess says after a second. “Give me like, a minute, okay? Maybe two.”

Patrick nods, and then after realizing that Jess can’t see him, he says okay. There’s a blur of voices in the background wherever Jess is, but he can only make out half of her side of the conversation, and the background noises eventually disappear. Patrick realizes she probably stepped outside of wherever she is right now—probably work, because not everyone gets to spend their afternoon in the comfort of their home—and there’s an apology on the tip of his tongue when she speaks again.

“So this might be a vague definition of ‘family emergency,’” Jess says, and Patrick feels himself unclench a little. “But I know you wouldn’t have called me at work otherwise.”

“Yeah,” Patrick says, and he laughs nervously. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s _fine_ , Pat. I know this can’t be easy for you,” and Patrick feels a lump form in his throat, one he tries to push down because he is not going to cry. “So tell me what happened, and we’ll figure it out.”

It’s somehow the exact thing that Patrick needs to hear and the whole story spills out. He starts at the beginning, or at least what he knows about it, until he’s stumbling over the details of that morning.

“And then he just took me home and told me that he’d see me tomorrow,” Patrick finishes with. “And I just—Jess, I think—I don’t know what happened.”

“So you’re both idiots,” Jess says when he’s done. “I’m pretty sure I already told you that, though.”

“Yeah,” Patrick agrees. He isn’t sure there is any way that he can deny that.

“You actually think that Jonny knows what Netflix and chill means? Pat, number one, no one says that now, and number two, this is _Jonny_. Remember when you were younger and you’d constantly complain that he didn’t understand your jokes?”

Patrick does remember; it was the thing he found most annoying about Jonny when they were rookies, and that included the way he’d leave water bottles everywhere. Those things were a health hazard. It was maybe a stupid thing to be annoyed over, but Patrick was a funny guy, and Jonny didn’t laugh at any of his jokes referencing current movies or tv shows.

He eventually figured out that hockey took up so much of Jonny’s brain that it didn’t leave room for much else, especially in the years before they won their first cup. Patrick might not know Jonny as well as Jonny knows him right now, but Jonny probably hasn’t changed _that_ much.

And—and Jonny probably thinks he actually just wants to watch Netflix and relax. Alone, because Patrick had said that he wasn’t in the mood for company either. That’s never excluded Jonny before, but he’s starting to see how Jonny might have taken this completely the wrong way.

For the second time that day, Patrick’s feeling pretty dumb.

“Shit,” he says, and Jess laughs softly on the other end of the phone. “Next time I want to tell Jonny that I want his dick in my ass, I’m getting you to do it for me.”

“That—that is an image I did not need.” She sounds a little disgusted by it, but mostly she just sounds amused, and Patrick’s proud of himself for not freaking out at her words. “You’re going to buy me a ‘sorry for mentally scarring my sister’ gift later. But only after you’ve talked to Jonny.”

“Send me a list,” he replies, because she absolutely does deserve something for sorting his shit out. “Seriously, Jess—thanks.”

“You’d do the same for me,” she says simply, which—yeah. Patrick would absolutely do the same thing for any of his sisters. “But next time if you wanted to mentally scar one of your other sisters, I’d be okay with that.”

“I—” Patrick says. It’s as close as he’s come to thinking about telling the rest of his family, but Erica and Jackie would probably be the best place to start. “You guys should come out here in a couple of weeks. And maybe—maybe then.”

“You’re ready to expose Jonny to us?”

“He already knows how terrible you all are,” Patrick chirps back, and Jess laughs. “But I think he’d really like that.”

“And what do you want?” Jess asks him after a couple of seconds. “Because—”

“Jess,” he interrupts, because he isn’t going to let her think that he doesn’t want this. Just remembering how Jonny’s face had crumpled at the thought of no one knowing about them—Patrick doesn’t want to be the cause of that ever again. He doesn’t want to hurt Jonny any more than he already has. “I think—it’s time.”

“Good,” Jess says. “Now go do all those things I don’t want to think about, and use words that Jonny will understand.”

She’s laughing as she hangs up on him, which is _rude_ , but she’s right. He does need to talk to Jonny, and this time he’s going to use zero pop culture references when he explains exactly what he wants to do with Jonny. And then hopefully do all the things that she doesn’t want to think about.

It doesn’t take long after that for his burritos to arrive; once he’s wolfed down the first he heads downstairs and climbs into the cab that’s waiting for him. Thankfully the driver doesn’t seem interested in him and Patrick makes conversation about the weather (wet) and the traffic (predictably terrible) while he wrings his hands together.

He throws a quick wave in Michael’s direction once he reaches the warmth of Jonny’s lobby and heads upstairs without a word. It takes too long to reach the nineteenth floor, but when he reaches Jonny’s door he pauses, unsure whether he should knock or just let himself in.

Eventually he knocks, and when there’s no answer he does it again. He waits a couple of seconds before he grabs his set of keys and lets himself in.

“Jonny?” he yells, but there’s no answer. There’s only silence, and as Patrick walks through the condo, he realises it’s because Jonny isn’t _home_.

He sends a quick message to Jonny, _im at yours_ , but there’s a familiar ding seconds after he hits send. He traces the sound back to Jonny’s bedroom, where his phone sits forgotten in the middle of the bed.

It would be easy to leave Jonny a note, to send him a text that would tell him to call Patrick as soon as he got home _or else_. But Patrick’s plans for the rest of the day have already been ruined by his own stupidity, and he settles onto Jonny’s couch with his second burrito.

Jonny has to come home at some point. And when he does, Patrick’s going to be here.

\--

By the time Patrick hears the front door open and close, he’s buried beneath the duvet on Jonny’s bed. It had seemed like a good idea when he’d snuggled into the warmth, the smell of the fabric softener reminding him of Jonny, but now he feels a little ridiculous.

He’s about to climb out of bed and find Jonny, but when he looks over to the doorway Jonny’s already standing there. Jonny looks confused, like he can’t quite believe that Patrick’s in his bed. Which, okay, Patrick might be able to see exactly _why_ Jonny thinks that, especially when Jonny’s probably had more than a few drinks.

Jonny’s alcohol-flushed; Patrick can see the redness staining the apples of his cheeks and the sheen of sweat clinging to his skin. He wants nothing more than to press his mouth to Jonny’s neck, to taste the dampness, and to see how far the flush spreads down his chest.

But there’s a conversation they need to have first, and apparently Jonny isn’t going to be the one to start it.

“Hey,” Patrick offers, and it seems to click Jonny’s brain into gear.

“Patrick,” Jonny starts, and Patrick’s surprised to find that he isn’t slurring his words. “I didn’t—what—”

“So you should ask me again if I want to have dinner with Seabs.”

“You can’t just—”

“Jonny,” Patrick says in what he hopes is a firm voice. It works; Jonny meets his eyes for the first time in the whole conversation, and Patrick tries to imitate Jonny’s captain tone as much as he can as he continues. “Ask me again.”

“Seabs invited us to dinner,” Jonny says, his monotone as bored as whenever he has to read something for BHTV. “And—this is ridiculous.”

Patrick chooses to ignore him. It _is_ ridiculous, but at least this way Patrick can choose his words carefully in a way he didn’t the first time they had this conversation.

“Well, as much as I’d love to hang out with Seabs, I was kinda hoping we could do our own thing tonight. You know, like, your dick, my ass, boom. Instant win.”

“Oh,” Jonny says, but his eyes are soft and a little hopeful, and Patrick just wants to kiss him so much. It takes Patrick a second to realize that’s a thing that he can do, and then it doesn’t take more than a few more for him to climb out of bed and cross the room until he’s standing in front of Jonny.

“You couldn’t have just said that?” Jonny continues, reaching out to trail his fingers over the back of Patrick’s hand. The gesture seems automatic, and it makes Patrick wonder how many times they’ve stood in front of each other like this, how many times they’ve shared hidden touches in front of their families, their teammates, the rest of the world.

Probably too many for Jonny’s liking, but Patrick’s ready to change that.

“What kind of idiot doesn’t know what Netflix and chill means?” Patrick says, but the words are swallowed by Jonny kissing him. It’s barely more than a brush of lips but Patrick feels it all the way to his toes. He wants _more_ , and when Jonny pulls away it’s hard to resist following his mouth. “You’re such a dork.”

“Says the person watching—” and Jonny cranes his neck to see exactly what Patrick was watching. “Edmonton at Calgary, really? You couldn’t find a decent team?”

“The other option was the Jets, so _no_.”

“Fuck off,” Jonny says, but the soft, happy smile that Patrick saw earlier is back. Patrick takes it as a win, especially when Jonny wraps his arms around him and there’s a kiss pressed to his temple. He relaxes into the embrace and buries his face in the crook of Jonny’s neck, brushing kisses against his damp skin. It’s easy to enjoy being wrapped in Jonny’s arms, solid and strong, and Patrick wants to stay like this for as long as he can.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles into Jonny’s neck. “I’m an idiot. I thought you’d get it, and you—you _know_ that when I say I don’t want company, that doesn’t include _you_.”

“I thought you were freaking out about this,” Jonny says quietly. Patrick hears the unspoken _again_ at the end of that sentence, and he swallows the lump in his throat. “And I didn’t—”

“Jonny,” Patrick interrupts, because he can’t hear how Jonny thought that Patrick didn’t want him. “Jonny, I told _Jess_ about us. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Really?” Jonny asks, his mouth curving upwards, and Patrick can’t resist kissing it

“Yeah,” Patrick says. “She was—she was great, Jonny. Apparently you think I have ‘amazing hands.’” Jonny at least has the good grace to look embarrassed about that, but Patrick knows that Jonny thinks it’s true. Probably both on the ice and off. “And I know that not everyone is going to be Jess, but—I think I’m ready to tell people. If this happens again—if I lose my memory, or something happens—I don’t want to not _know_ about us.”

“Good, cause I, uh, might have told Seabs,” Jonny says. Patrick has to take a second to fight the panic curling inside of him, and he misses half of what Jonny says afterwards until: “And it probably means that he’s calling Duncs right now to tell him.”

“So codependent,” Patrick chirps, except that’s kind of like pot calling the kettle black.

“You really want to do this?” Jonny asks. He still sounds unsure, and Patrick presses their lips together softly, trying to reassure Jonny with touch rather than words. Patrick trails his hands across Jonny’s back, feeling the muscles shift as Jonny pulls him closer, an arm wrapped around his shoulders to keep Patrick exactly where Jonny wants him.

“Well, _this_ is a pretty broad term,” Patrick says, grinning around the words. “But if the options are a) kiss you, b) put your dick in my ass, or c) tell people about us, then I’m going to pick d). All of the above.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Jonny says, but the fondness is written all over his face.

“You love it,” Patrick says.

“I really do,” Jonny says, and Patrick’s heart does a little flip as Jonny’s hand comes up to cup his jaw, his fingers trailing over the day-old stubble. “I’m gonna show you how much, Peeks.”

“You already have,” Patrick replies honestly. He sees the moment when Jonny’s emotions overwhelm him, his mouth a little open and his eyes wide and glassy. Patrick knows he needs to put a stop to this because if Jonny cries, Patrick’s going to cry, and then he’s pretty sure there’s going to be a distinct lack of dick-in-ass action.

And sure, it still comes with a side of shame right now, but Patrick can work past that. Clearly he did it once before, and this time he isn’t stepping into completely unchartered territory.

“Brush your teeth,” Patrick says after a minute, nudging Jonny in the direction of the bathroom. “‘m gonna get in bed.”

Jonny does as he’s told—there’s not even a comment or chirp—and Patrick crawls over the bed until he’s buried under the duvet again. There are butterflies in his stomach, but they’re not from nerves; they’re from the anticipation of what’s about to happen. Maybe he was nervous the first time he let Jonny fuck him, had tried to push the shame to one side while Jonny took him apart with his fingers in ways that he never knew he wanted, but he isn’t that Patrick anymore.

It figures that it would be _Jonny_ who’d make him question everything he thought about himself: they’ve pushed each other to be better for more than ten years, molded each other into the people they are today.

Patrick’s always seen their future together since they were rookies, their legacies as players intertwined from the beginning, their names tied together for eternity. Maybe this was always the next step for them, because they’ve been called weird and codependent since that first year. Maybe everyone else could see what they were blind to until they were pushed.

And Patrick’s really, really glad they were pushed.

He’s broken out of his thoughts by the other side of the bed dipping under Jonny’s weight. He looks like he belongs out of porn; his skin’s glowing in the dim lighting, the shadows of his muscles carving his body like a statue. He’s beautiful, and he’s Patrick’s, and Patrick just wants to kiss every inch of skin he can see.

His plan gets derailed when Jonny manhandles him until Patrick’s pressed tight along Jonny’s side. His head is pillowed on Jonny’s chest, and one of Jonny’s ridiculous arms is wrapped around him as Patrick trails his fingers over the hard lines of Jonny’s abs. Their legs are intertwined and even if Patrick wanted to, he isn’t sure he could move.

“Put the Jets game on,” Jonny says quietly, and presses a kiss to Patrick’s forehead. Patrick can feel the smile against his skin, and he doesn’t feel like like he can really argue when Jonny’s so _happy_.

But it doesn't stop his chirping because that’s what they do, and he grumbles, “I can’t believe I’m in love with someone who willingly wants to watch this shit.”

Jonny tenses beneath him as he stretches his arm out for the remote, and Patrick glances up to find that same, awful, unreadable expression on his face.

“Peeks, you don’t—” Jonny starts, but Patrick just muffles his laughter into Jonny’s chest, and the rest of Jonny’s words are lost to the sound of his giggles. Jess was right. They _are_ both idiots.

“Jonny,” Patrick says. “I’m not just saying it. So stop worrying,” and he presses a soft kiss to the edge of Jonny’s jaw, “because I do love you. And I want to get fucked.”

“How can I resist an offer like that?” Jonny jokes, but then he’s rolling Patrick over until Patrick’s pinned beneath him, and he’s looking at Patrick like he’s been given the whole fucking _world_ and Patrick—

Patrick finally feels like he’s right where he belongs.

\--

_Epilogue_

Patrick’s nervous.

Coming out to his family was easier than he ever imagined. He started with his sisters, and when they took it well—almost too well, because now they text him after every game with a rating of how much him and Jonny eyefuck on the ice, which _what the fuck_ —it gave him the confidence he needed to tell his parents.

They weren’t quite as supportive as his sisters were, but neither of them disowned him or threatened never to speak to him again, so Patrick counted it as a win. They’d been less concerned about the fact that it was a guy and more concerned about the effect it might have on his career. Patrick had chickened out on telling them it was Jonny at that point; he hadn’t been in the mood for a lecture about how banging the team captain is going to fuck up the dynamics of the team.

Except then his mom decided it would be a great idea to invite his _boyfriend_ for dinner, which a) sounds like he’s in high school and b) is not what he would call Jonny, ever. By that time it felt too late to spring the Jonny surprise on them, but there’s a part of him now that wishes he had.

Maybe then he wouldn’t be so nervous.

Jonny is surprisingly punctual; he knocks on Patrick’s door at exactly 6 PM, and when Patrick opens it Jonny’s looking unfairly good in his wool coat. He’s also holding a bottle of wine, and Patrick rolls his eyes. Jonny is such a Canadian stereotype sometimes.

“You know you live upstairs, right?” Patrick says as way of a greeting. Jonny holds the wine out as an explanation to why he has a coat on, but he still looks a little embarrassed. “And you’re such a suck up. My parents already love you, dumbass.”

It’s not a lie. His parents have seen Jonny in all stages of drunken debauchery and somehow still think he’s a good influence on Patrick.

“It’s different,” Jonny says, ducking his head, and Patrick’s not sure that he’s ever seen Jonny so unsure except for the first time they kissed after he’d lost his memories. “I wasn’t corrupting their son then.”

“I don’t think they think that _now_ ,” Patrick says. He shuts the door behind Jonny as Jonny shrugs his coat off, hanging it in the closet by the door for the first time in ever. “And what, you can hang your fucking jacket up for my parents but not me?”

“Gotta make a good impression,” Jonny says, and now that he’s taken his coat off Patrick can see exactly the kind of impression that Jonny wants to make. He’s wearing one of his nicer button down shirts and his stupid custom fit jeans that highlight his assets—pun definitely intended. He looks _good_ and pretty much exactly how Patrick would have dressed to meet the parents of a girlfriend. He’s sure that’s the main point of the outfit, and not that he wants everyone in Chicago to see what a fantastic ass he has.

Not that it’s exactly a secret, but still.

Jonny’s clearly nervous, his fingers clenching and unclenching around the bottle of wine, and Patrick presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth. He’d be happy to kiss away Jonny’s nerves in the hallway, but he knows that Jonny would never go for that idea. Jonny actually wants to do this whole meet-the-parents thing for real. Patrick thinks it’s kind of ridiculous when his dad met Jonny for the first time when Jonny was thirteen, but Jonny’s stubborn enough that his mind won’t be changed.

They wander towards the kitchen, Jonny still clutching his bottle of wine, their fingers brushing as they walk.

It’s quiet, the only noise the distant hum of the television coming from the living room, but the silence is broken by his mom calling, “Patrick, was that the door?”

“Uh, yeah,” he says, stomach churning as he nudges Jonny into the kitchen first. “Mom, I—”

“Jonny!” she interrupts, a wide smile on her face, and Patrick relaxes a tiny bit. “My son didn’t tell us you were coming, I’ll get Tiki to set another place at the table.”

“There isn’t any need for that, Mrs. Kane,” Jonny says after he’s been thoroughly hugged by Patrick’s mom, still clutching the bottle of wine as she turns back to the stove.

“Nonsense, sweetheart. There’s enough food for everyone, and I’m sure Pat’s—uh, his _friend_ wouldn’t mind.”

Jonny doesn’t manage to hold back his bark of laughter at that, but he covers it into a cough, and his mom looks none the wiser as she stirs whatever lactose-free, gluten-free, fun-free meal they’re eating tonight. Patrick’s going to be eating like this for the rest of his life, so he guesses he better get used to it now. The salad is already prepared and sitting on the counter, and he snags a slice of tomato out of it.

It gets slapped out of his hands by Jonny. His pointed look conveys general disappointment in Patrick, but he knows it’s more to do with telling his parents and less to do with eating out of the salad bowl. It doesn’t stop him from biting at his lower lip, a pool of heat forming low in his stomach when Jonny looks as though he wants to do the exact same thing to Patrick.

Now is not the time or place though, and before the thoughts about dragging Jonny to the nearest flat surface overwhelm his brain he shuts them down. It’s supposed to be a night for introducing his Jonny to his parents and showing them that they can make this work despite their careers, not them figuring it out because they can’t keep their fucking hands off each other.

Although they can’t do that either. Patrick’s memory is pretty much back the way it should be, and the low thrum of arousal around Jonny is still constant. Almost as though they’re making up for lost time. He isn’t sure whether that’s the five weeks where he didn’t remember any of it or the ten years before that.

“Mom, I—” and his mouth goes dry as she looks up at him expectantly. “Can I talk to you? And dad. In, uh, the living room.”

“I can help with the food,” Jonny offers, and takes the spoon out of his mom’s hand without a second thought. Patrick watches him taste the sauce and then grab something from the spice rack Jonny gave him as a housewarming gift and he can’t help but smile.

When he looks over to his mom, he sees a knowing expression on her face and he groans internally. So much for telling her before she figured it out herself.

“Jonny?” she asks him quietly as they round the corner, and he nods. “Okay.”

“Okay?” he questions, because he expected more lectures about his hockey coming first and how dating Jonny would make it awkward for the team and what would happen if they broke up. “Mom—”

“He’s always been good for you, Pat,” she carries on. “And I know Andree would agree.”

Andree actually _does_ agree, since Jonny had told his parents the last time they’d been in Winnipeg, but he isn’t about to tell his mom that. It would definitely spoil the moment.

“I expected you to tell me that it would fuck the team up,” Patrick says quietly.

“Pat, you’ve made some _questionable_ choices in the past,” she starts, and Patrick can’t hide his wince at that because his mom seeing his drunken antics on Deadspin was not the highlight of his life. Most other kids get to do that in college, far away from their parents. “And we were worried that this guy would only want you for your money, or to sell your story to the press. It’s why we suggested this, so we could get to know him too. But Jonny—I know that neither of you would risk hockey.”

“Thanks, Mom,” he says, and he can feels the tears prickling at his eyes as she hugs him. He lets himself relax into her embrace, letting the nervousness seep out of him, and he feels better once she lets him go.

“I’ll even pretend to be surprised when you tell your father,” she says and he can’t help but laugh. He’s pretty sure that his dad’s face will be a sight to behold. “Maybe Jonny can video it for us.”

There’s a second when he imagines Jonny doing it and then shakes his head, because Jonny would _never_ do anything that might offend a parent. Even one he’s known as long as Patrick’s dad. And especially when he wants to make a _good impression_ , what the fuck, because Jonny already _has_.

“He wouldn’t go for it,” Patrick says ruefully. “He respects you guys too much.”

“Then maybe you could learn something from him,” his mom says, and Patrick has to stop himself from rolling his eyes. He totally respects his mom. She’s _awesome_. “But you don’t have all day to tell your father, sweetheart.”

“Mom, I—can I tell him alone?” Patrick says. “I think it would be better.”

What he actually thinks is that his dad will only see the black and white of the situation and that’s something Patrick prepared himself for. All hockey and no feelings. So different from his mom who thinks that Jonny’s _good for him_.

His mom nods after a second, and she kisses him on the cheek before she heads back towards the kitchen. When she’s out of sight he takes three silent steps towards the doorway so that he has a clear view into the room.

His mom and Jonny are talking quietly, or at least his mom’s talking quietly and Jonny’s listening intently. Jonny’s head is ducked a little, the flush of embarrassment staining his cheeks at whatever she’s saying. It’s strange watching them together, because he’d have thought that she’d be treating him differently, like she has every single one of Patrick’s exes, but she’s just treating him like she always has.

And it hits him then that normally they’d be making awkward small talk about his family or what town he grew up in or what he does for a living, except his mom knows this already. She already knows all about his family, hell, she’s met them countless times over the years. She knows he considers Chicago his home, however much he loves Winnipeg. She knows that he drives Patrick crazy sometimes and that he can be an asshole and that one of his favorite things to do after Cup wins is to pour beer into Patrick’s mouth.

Watching his mom and Jonny talk like they're family makes his heart stick in his throat, and Patrick isn’t sure he could have asked for anything better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're ever in Vancouver, and want to try some really amazing macarons, the macaron place [exists](http://www.bonmacaronpatisserie.com/) and is really delicious. And they do have bacon macarons.
> 
> The restaurant in Downtown Disney [also exists](http://www.rbjazzkitchen.com/index2.php) and is also delicious.
> 
> Everywhere else is a product of my imagination.
> 
> Come find me on tumblr: [main](http://clayisforgirls.tumblr.com/), [fic](http://clayisforgirlsfic.tumblr.com/)

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from "Open Your Eyes" by Snow Patrol.


End file.
